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THE ECONOMY AND 
TRAINING OF MEMORY 



BY 



HENEY J. WATT 



Lecturer on Psychology in the University of Glasgow and 

to the Glasgow Provincial Committee for the 

Training of Teachers 



SECOND IMPRESSION' 



NEW YORK 
LONGMANS, GEEEN & CO, 

LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD 
1909 

[All rights reserved] 



\^3 







I 



PREFACE 

During the last twenty-five years the experi- 
mental study of memory has made considerable 
progress, and valuable results have been ob- 
tained. Many of these have an important 
bearing upon practice and upon the economy 
of effort. The aim of the following pages is to 
make these results more accessible to students 
and teachers, and to win for exact psychology 
some part of the interest and attention which 

it will command in the future. 

H. J. W. 

February, 1909. 



iii 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGES 

I. INTRODUCTION - - - 1—10 

1. CAN THE NATIVE FACULTY OF MEMORY 

BE IMPROVED ? - - - 1 

2. WHETHER WE EVER COMPLETELY FORGET 

ANYTHING - - - 4 

3. THE DEFINITION OF MEMORY: DISTINC- 

TION FROM TRACE OF INFLUENCE - 5 

4. THE EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF 

MEMORY- - - - 6 

5. SYSTEMS OF MEMORY TRAINING - - 8 

6. CONCLUSION - - - - 10 

II. THE EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION 

OF MEMORY - - - 11—24 

7. THE MATERIAL - - - - 11 

8. METHOD OF TAKING INTO THE MIND - 13 

9. MEMORY MEASURES : (a) THE NUMBER OF 

REPETITIONS - - - - 14 

10. (b) THE NUMBER OF SPECIFIED RECALLS - 15 

11. (c) RECALL TIMES - - - - 17 

12. (d) OTHER MEASURES - - - 19 

13. ASSOCIATION : ITS DEFINITION - - 21 

14. QUANTITATIVE DISTINCTION BETWEEN 

ASSOCIATIONS - - - - 23 

15. PROBLEMS STATED - - - - 24 

V 



vi CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 



PAGES 



III. SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS - 25—39 

16. IS ALL MEMORY MECHANICAL ? - 25 

17. HAS THE CHILD A BETTER MEMORY THAN 

THE ADULT? - - - - 28 

18. DOES MEMORY RUN PARALLEL TO IN- 

TELLIGENCE ? - - - 31 

19. HOW MUCH CAN BE DONE BY MERB 

EFFORT OF ATTENTION ? - - 33 

20. MEMORY AND THE ENERGY OF MIND 

AVAILABLE - - - - 38 

IV. THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE 

MEMORY - - - 40—85 

21. IMMEDIATE MEMORY - - - 40 

22. THE NUMBER OF REPETITIONS - - 41 

23. THE SHORTEST ASSOCIATION IS THE 

STRONGEST - - - - 43 

24. SOME HELPS AND HINDRANCES TO THE 

FORMATION OF CORRECT ASSOCIATIONS - 44 

25. INFERENCES - - - - 47 

26. LEARNING IN WHOLE OR IN PARTS : 

(a) FAMILIAR MATTER - - - 48 

27. (b) MATTER WITH SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES - 52 

28. (c) VERY LONG PIECES - - - 54 

29. THE DISTRIBUTION OF REPETITIONS - 55 

30. 31. INFERENCES - - - - 57 

32. OLD ASSOCIATIONS LOSE STRENGTH LESS 

RAPIDLY THAN NEW ONES - - 61 

33. THE PERSISTENCE OF IDEAS - - 63 

34. A PAUSE AFTER LEARNING - - 66 

35. LEARNING WITH PERIODIC PAUSES - 67 



CONTENTS vii 

CHAPTER PAGES 

IV. THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE 
MEMO R Y— ( continued) 

36. rhythm - - - ■ -69 

37. learning under pressure - 70 

38. LOCALISATION - - • -72 

39. THE WILL TO REMEMBER - 75 

40. HOW WILL AIDS MEMORY - - 78 

41. PLEASANT RESULTS HELP THE MEMORY 82 

42. TRUST THE MEMORY - - - 83 



V. MENTAL IMAGERY - - - 86—108 

43. INTRODUCTION - - - 86 

44. RESULTS OP EARLY PSYCHOLOGICAL IN- 

VESTIGATION — THE THREE TYPES - 88 

45. LATER WORK - - - 90 

46. FACTORS DETERMINING IMAGERY : (a) THE 

MANNER OF PRESENTATION - - 91 

47. (b) PURPOSE IN REMEMBERING - - 92 

48. (c) PREDISPOSITION OF INDIVIDUALS TO 

CERTAIN KINDS OF IMAGERY - 93 

49. SOME EXTERNAL SIGNS OF TYPE OF 

IMAGERY - - - 95 

50. THE SCOPE OF IMAGERY ! (a) IN ACTION - 97 

51. (b) IN THOUGHT - - - 98 

52. INFERENCES : (a) DO NOT MULTIPLY 

IMAGERY UNNECESSARILY - - 101 

53. (b) POSITIVE RULES - - - 102 

54. (c) IN GENERAL, VISUALISE - - 105 

55. (d) WORK IN GROUPS AND THE TEACH- 

ING OF CHILDREN - - - 106 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGES 

VI. ON THOUGHTS - - - 109—122 

56. THERE ARE THOUGHTS - - - 109 

57. THE LAWS OF MEMORY FOR THOUGHTS 

DIFFER FROM THE PRECEDING - 112 

58. SOME EXPLANATION OF THE ABOVE - 114 

59. THOUGHT LINKS AS AN AID TO MEMORY - 117 

60. THE PLACE OF MEMORY IN CONSCIOUS 

LIFE - - - - - 119 

VII. RULES FOR THE ECONOMY AND 

TRAINING OF MEMORY - 123—128 



THE ECONOMY AND TRAINING 
OF MEMORY 

CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

1. Can the Native Faculty of Memory be 
Improved ? 

There is almost a consensus of opinion at the 
present time that the native faculty of memory 
cannot be improved. Each man is born into 
the world with a certain capacity for remem- 
bering, and all he can do is to use his talent to 
the best effect. Now, while this opinion does 
correspond in some fashion to the present state 
of our knowledge, it can hardly be held to be 
an adequate expression of it. The fact is, we 
do not know what absolute memory means. 
We have knowledge of a number of circum- 
stances which have a good or bad effect on 
the work of memory — which, in other words, 

1 



2 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

increase or decrease the amount learned, or 
the amount remembered after a certain time, 
or the speed of learning. But we certainly do 
not yet know all these circumstances, and 
while we believe that, apart from helping or 
hindering circumstances, the native power of 
memory varies from man to man, we have not 
yet been able to give numerical expression 
to these variations. It is even possible that 
no such ultimate variations exist. Besides, if 
they do exist, there is no good reason why we 
should not hope one day to discover a means 
of improving memory, just as we have dis- 
covered the means of combating disease, and 
of increasing the health and strength of in- 
dividuals. This would, however, simply mean 
that we had discovered factors hitherto un- 
known, whose temporary operation produced 
a permanent improvement in memory power. 
There is, indeed, little reason for the assertion 
that the native faculty of memory cannot be 
improved, except the fact that we do not often 
observe a spontaneous improvement of memory. 
Yet, in view of the fact that a spontaneous and 



INTRODUCTION 3 

permanent deterioration of memory is no un- 
common occurrence, we might well believe 
that the native faculty of every normal man 
is the same — that is, the best possible — apart 
from the help or hindrance given by factors of 
temporary duration. For these reasons it is 
better at present not to suggest the possibility 
of an improvement in memory, but only to 
teach how the memory may be used most 
economically, how it can be got to do the most 
with the least effort. 

A certain general vigour or weakness may 
be characteristic of the memory of any one 
person, but that this vigour is not so great for 
some things as for others is a matter of popular 
knowledge. It changes with the needs, habits, 
interests of the individual, and with a hundred 
other circumstances. Besides, to talk of a 
native faculty of memory suggests that we 
have accounted for all that might hinder or 
help memory, and have sifted out the essence 
of memory itself and measured its strength. 
We are, of course, still far from this goal of 
memory study. We shall have a better view 

1—2 



4 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

of it after we have travelled farther over the 
road of careful and accurate investigation, 
and it is probable that we shall then not talk 
of a faculty of memory, which might be im- 
proved as a whole, but of many processes of 
memory, each helping to build up the whole, 
and each brought about with the least ex- 
penditure of energy. 

2. Whether we ever completely Forget 
Anything. 

It is quite another question whether we ever 
completely forget anything. Most people 
imagine we do not. The preoccupations of 
our daily life and our vivid memory of many 
details of the past hide from us what we have 
forgotten, though every now and then the veil 
is lifted, and we recover with joy or dismay the 
memory of some forgotten word or deed. On 
the other hand, those who have lost hope and 
take refuge in the past, as well as those who 
are fretful of the past and brood over it 
repentantly and complainingly, soon come to 
the conviction that nothing is really beyond 



INTRODUCTION 5 

recall. To persistent brooding even the dim- 
mest past will yield. There are many other 
motives for a belief in a complete memory 
record of the past. They need not be re- 
counted here. This question, like the previous 
one, is insoluble because we have no absolute 
or complete record with which to compare our 
subjective memory record. We may, indeed, 
believe we never forget anything. This does 
not, however, mean that we can recall every- 
thing at will, but only that we cannot be sure 
that what we can usually specify merely as 
the event of yesterday or a year ago, or of such 
and such an occasion, will not return in detail 
to the mind as the direct object of memory. 

3. The Definition of Memory : Distinction 
from Trace of Influence. 

If a series of foreign words is learnt to-day 
with a certain amount of labour, and relearnt 
with a less amount of labour after many years 
of forgetfulness, it may well be assumed that 
the influence of memory shows itself in tie 
lessened labour of the second learning, although 



6 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

it must not be forgotten that intervening ex- 
periences may be the cause of the saving in 
labour. So it might be said that every thought 
and experience we have, has some effect on our 
minds, just as everything we eat has some effect 
upon our bodies, and that therefore nothing is 
forgotten. But this is not the proper meaning 
of the word " memory." To remember an 
event is to recall it clearly and consciously to 
mind with the help of some clue. 

4. The Experimental Investigation of 
Memory. 

The knowledge of our time suggests only the 
attempt to improve the working of memory. 
We must strengthen in it those influences 
which favour remembrance, and remove those 
which quicken forget fulness. This, of course, 
has been the endeavour of men of all times. 
But conviction and system-making have often 
outrun knowledge, and knowledge itself has 
been based upon persuasion, effort, and the 
cursory observation of a few cases rather than 
upon facts and generalisations, valid in pros- 
pect for all, because, in fact, true of so many. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Only within the last few decades have exact 
observations been made of the conditions 
which influence the working of memory. 
Psychologists have begun to investigate 
memory experimentally. There is nothing 
new or startling in this. A great many 
sciences now extend the basis of their know- 
ledge by means of experiment, and all of these 
knew a time when generalisations were made 
hastily on a small number of casual and im- 
perfect observations. In the young days of a 
science such hasty generalisations are unavoid- 
able, because the motives urging to generalisa- 
tion are at all times strong, and the desire and 
attempt to form theories is at all times laudable. 
Such an attempt may lead to renewed care in 
the establishment of facts already noted, to 
the discovery of new facts, and so to a better 
theory. It is not its method of generalisation 
which characterises modern science, but the 
demand for an ever-increasing exactness and 
number of data on which to base generalisa- 
tions. Modern inductive method demands for 
its conclusions a basis of observed fact such as 
is provided either by a few observations under 



8 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

a limited number of known conditions, or by a 
large number of observations under known con- 
ditions and an accompanying complex of 
unknown conditions which are all of limited 
influence, more or less irregular occurrence, and 
irregular tendency. It is under these latter con- 
ditions that psychology experiments. It belongs 
not to the group of exact sciences like physics 
and chemistry, which can express laws with 
mathematical exactness, systematise these and 
deduce unknown ones mathematically. So far 
as psychology is quantitative, it is a science of 
probabilities, based on experimental statistics. 
As such it has been able to achieve some unity 
of opinion about the operations of memory 
and its economy, and so to get rid of the dis- 
tressing divergence of views which was so 
general in the previous literature of the subject. 

5. Systems of Memory Training. 

Where knowledge of the natural basis of any 
important practice is imperfect, it is natural 
to attempt to complete it by rules and prin- 
ciples. So we find that well-nigh all the old 
theories about memory took the form of 



INTRODUCTION 9 

systems of memory training, each almost in- 
fallible in its own eyes, though differing in 
many points from any other memory system. 
There have been systems of all possible kinds, 
some offering greater, some less results. It 
is needless to describe them. They are well 
known. Any pamphlet on the subject will 
give a good idea of them all. And yet such 
systems are not all valueless, for, though based 
on rough trial and general impression, they 
have been handed down through many cen- 
turies, and bear the mark of the experiences 
of many kinds of men. Thus, both their 
foundation and their validity may be greater 
than it seems. But, of course, they were 
bound to miss many of the influences which 
affect memory, such influences especially as 
are too subtle and indirect to force themselves 
upon our notice. The impressiveness of these 
systems is derived partly from their seeming 
simplicity, and partly from the results they 
describe and lightly promise to everyone, 
although these are often more remarkable for 
their oddity than for their usefulness. In 
principle such systems of memory training 



10 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

are all out of date, although in some cases 
their contents have not yet been tested or 
outreached in psychological experiments. Their 
best effect is to stimulate the will to remember, 
although they often detract from this by rousing 
the desire to produce a big show with little 
substance — in short, how to seem to have a 
good memory. They have often served a good 
turn in that they have persuaded many who 
have followed them that they had, after all, 
not so bad a memory as they imagined, and 
so have saved them from themselves. Most of 
us are slaves to our bad opinions of ourselves. 

6. Conclusion. 
In order to use the memory to most advan- 
tage we must first know and understand how it 
works, which influences increase its power, and 
which act against it. Our practical efforts must 
thereafter consist in encouraging good influences 
and eliminating bad ones. We must therefore 
observe the memory at work, and measure its 
activity under varying influences. This is the 
experimental investigation of memory. 



CHAPTER II 

TEE EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF 
MEMORY 

7. The Material. 
How can we experiment upon memory ? It 
is not difficult. We must first obtain material 
to be learned, and since, in order to derive 
general statements which will hold good for 
everyone, a large number of experiments has 
to be made with different people, our material 
must be as uniform as possible. Experiments 
have been made with tones, with colours, with 
lines of various lengths, and other such simple 
things ; but experience has shown that the 
most elementary experience is not necessarily 
the most suitable material for showing the 
operations of memory. The use of very simple 
material is complicated by a variety of con- 
ditions which need not be enumerated here. 
11 



12 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

Of all material proposed, the one which most 
resembles the kind of thing we have to make 
an effort to remember in daily life is the 
nonsense syllable. It can always be of the 
same length, and can be constructed according 
to fixed rules, based on the experimental results 
obtained by using syllables constructed in 
various ways. By the use of such syllables, 
of which great numbers can be made, the very 
disturbing influence of the meaning of words 
with their manifold associations can be elimi- 
nated from the experiments. It is a familiar 
fact that words whose meanings are known, 
are remembered more or less easily for all 
manner of reasons. Nonsense syllables, having 
no meaning, provide little attraction to the 
memory, because they are almost devoid of 
associations. Thus, then, a large number of 
series of eight,* ten, twelve, or more syllables 
can be constructed, of such a kind that the 
same syllable either never occurs twice or 

* Two examples of such a series of nonsense syllables : 

Leb, rit, mon, yup, kig, des, wer, zam. 
Bax, goul, fos, hiv, ped, vaub, jum, cor. 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 13 

recurs only after a long interval. So the con- 
ditions under which this uniform material is 
learned can be varied from time to time, and 
their effect on the rate of learning and the 
duration of memories observed. It is, of 
course, not necessary to confine oneself to 
nonsense syllables. A great deal of work on 
memory has been done with prose and poetry, 
and, indeed, the results obtained with nonsense 
syllables should always be tested and compared 
with those derived from the use of intelligible 
material. 



8. Method of Taking into the Mind. 

Further, a uniform method of taking into 
the mind what is to be learned, must be ob- 
tained. This is usually got by arranging the 
nonsense syllables or other matter in perpen- 
dicular columns on a drum which is made to 
revolve at different speeds, and before which a 
small screen is placed. In this screen there is 
a small slit, through which the learner looks, 
and in which he sees one syllable after the 



14 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

other appear gradually or suddenly, and 
disappear similarly, to be replaced by the next, 
and so on. The learner attends and attempts 
according to the instructions given him, which 
may prescribe silent or loud reading or the like, 
to learn the sequence of syllables as quickly 
as possible. 

9. Memory Measures. 
(a) The Number of Repetitions. 

As a measure of the rate of learning, the 
number of repetitions of the series of syllables, 
necessary before the series can be repeated by 
heart once or twice, may be used. Under 
different conditions this number will be differ- 
ent, and will serve as a basis for generalisation, 
if a sufficient number of experiments are made 
under the same conditions. So, too, the num- 
ber of repetitions necessary before the series 
can be relearnt by heart after a certain interval 
— say twenty-four hours or a week — will serve 
as an index of the amount that had been for- 
gotten in the interval. Further knowledge 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 15 

may thus be gathered. For it may not be 
taken for granted that the ability to repeat a 
series of words by heart once, always repre- 
sents the same amount of mental work. It 
may be that, tested by the number of repeti- 
tions necessary to relearning the series next 
day, the effort may be seen to be of greater 
effect under one set of conditions than under 
the other. By such means a knowledge of the 
conditions of the most economical methods of 
learning may be gained. 

10. (6) The Number of Specified Recalls. 

Instead, however, of testing the memory by 
the number of repetitions which precede a free 
repetition by heart, the strength of memory 
may be determined after any given number 
of repetitions by presenting to the learner one 
of the words or syllables learned and requiring 
him to recall the one which followed or preceded 
it in the series in which it occurred, or the like. 
The number of syllables correctly recalled in 
this way is then a measure of his memory of 



16 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

what he had learned. Most valuable know- 
ledge is obtained in this way. For it is obvious 
that while one may not be able to repeat a 
series of words quite correctly, one may have 
retained much of it. Or again, one might be 
quite familiar with a piece of verse and recog- 
nise every sentence and phrase of it, and yet 
be quite unable to repeat it by heart when given 
the first line as a clue. If, however, a test were 
made as to the ability to complete phrases 
from the piece, to put the right word after a 
given word or phrase, it might probably be 
found that a good deal of the verse had been 
retained. What does this mean ? It means 
that the ability to recall is not the only test 
of memory. We remember to some extent 
much that we are not able to recall in its 
entirety. There is, however, obviously no direct 
method of measuring the strength of such a 
memory. 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 17 

11. (c) Recall Times. 

The ability to recall is, however, the roughest 
test of memory, even though some degree of 
refinement is obtained by counting the specified 
recalls. But it is well known that two people 
with equally correct memories may show very 
different degrees of command of these. One 
who recalls well, answers promptly. Slow and 
hesitating answers in which careful delibera- 
tion is not involved, are the sign of a much less 
efficient memory. The townsman, running 
from street to street every day of the year, 
talking, discussing, and recalling perpetually, 
will direct you on your way in a quarter of the 
time the countryman needs, although the latter 
has much less to remember in the matter of 
roads and directions. In school, " Who answers 
first ?" will give the prompt memory its just 
opportunity. The time, therefore, which 
elapses between the giving of the question or 
clue and the first word of the answer, can be 
used as a good measure of memory. For a 
complex object of memory, of course, these 

2 



18 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

recall times in conjunction with the correctness 
of recall afford a very elaborate and thorough 
measure of memory. If there is a fair number 
of short recall times and only a few long ones 
in a high percentage of correct reproductions, 
we may call the memory for the complex 
better than if in the same percentage of correct 
reproductions there be a smaller number of 
short recall times and a larger number of long 
ones. It is evident, then, that one may have 
a fair memory of a complex of which one is 
able to recall nothing voluntarily, and a poor 
memory of a complex of which a fair number 
of tags remain in the mind. This is one of the 
reasons why light theatrical pieces appeal to 
the mass of people more than others do.* See- 
ing that this method gives not only statistics of 

* The simplicity of the lighter piece and the repetition 
of favourite songs give many details a sure footing in the 
mind of the listener. The more artistic work, on the 
other hand, demands sustained attention, is more complex, 
and often leaves no place for the repetition of parts. It 
is lovely in its details, of course, but it also aims at pro- 
ducing large unitary impressions, which may often not 
become quite clear till several hearings and some thought 
have been spent on the work. 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 19 

what is remembered, but also time statistics, 
it is evident that we have here a much wider 
basis on which to raise generalisations. This 
method is therefore much more fruitful in 
detailed results than the others. 



12. {d) Other Measures. 

There are several other methods by which 
memory may be investigated. The ability to 
recognise what has been presented to the mind 
of the learner once or oftener may be tested. 
We do not recognise immediately everything 
we have seen once. There are people who 
even forget after a short time whether they 
have read a novel or not. We all know how 
many a book read after an interval for a second 
time appears almost new. Unfortunately, 
however, no very reliable test for recognition 
is known. A learner can either recall a word 
or he cannot. He will hardly omit to say the 
word if he can. But he may say he recognises 
a word, either without being sure that he does 
so, or without really recognising it at all. Not 

2—2 



20 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

everyone is equally fitted to be the subject 
of psychological experiment, and, therefore, 
where a subject may deceive himself, as we all 
do unwittingly at times, it is better to hold to 
methods that can be controlled objectively. 
Such are the methods of recall already 
described, and about these there can be no 
illusion. Another such method of somewhat 
less value consists in encouraging the learner 
to repeat what he has learned, even though 
he cannot do so completely or with confidence. 
The cues find clues given to him to help him 
along are then counted, and these numbers 
form the statistics. It is, however, not very 
clear just how much help such a clue does give, 
and the method is, consequently, not of any 
great value or reliability. Then, again, in- 
stead of counting the number of words which 
can be recalled when each preceding word is 
given, one may simply count the number of 
words that can be recalled voluntarily out of 
the whole complex. Obviously this is a measure 
of a certain kind of memory, but it neglects all 
that cannot be recalled spontaneously, which, 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 21 

as shown above, may be a good deal. It also 
omits to record what might have been recalled, 
had a clue been given. Still other methods 
are possible, but enough has been said to de- 
scribe the general manner of investigating and 
measuring memory. 

13. Association: Its Definition. 

What is the central element in memory which 
is better in one individual and worse in another, 
and which may be strengthened or weakened by 
a variety of factors ? It is association. Asso- 
ciation is one of the fundamental conceptions of 
psychology. This conception has been formed 
to explain the relation of our momentary, fleet- 
ing states of consciousness to one another, as 
forming simultaneous and successive states of a 
conscious individual who thinks, feels, and acts 
more or less as a unity. Now, there has been a 
great deal of trouble in the history of philosophy 
and psychology over the question whether ideas 
are independent, self-contained unities, merely 
linked together into bunches and chains by 



22 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

association, without affecting or changing one 
another thereby, or whether they influence one 
another in some way — as, for instance, a red 
background will influence a grey patch lying on 
it. The attempt has been made to work out 
the question consistently from both sides, of 
course for long without an exact investigation 
into the facts of the case by means of observa- 
tion and experiment, and so far, one must say, 
all attempts have failed, and have often landed 
in absurdities those who have made them. 
Material for the solution of the problem is still 
being gathered, so that no final statement can 
be made. Fortunately it is unnecessary to 
venture upon any here, for the conception of 
association is necessary to a comprehension and 
analysis of mental states, whether these do or 
do not affect one another by coming together. 
There can be no doubt that ideas, whether these 
be mental images of colours, forms, sounds, 
tastes, smells, and other sensations, feelings, or 
thoughts, do get arranged differently at 
different times, and that a certain amount of 
mental work, of effort, is necessary to hold 



INVESTIGATION OF MEMORY 23 

them fast in any one given arrangement. Once 
brought into any one arrangement, whether by 
outward impression or by voluntary effort, they 
tend to remain in it, so that under certain cir- 
cumstances the recall of one or more of the 
ideas will tend to bring them all, together or in 
succession, to mind. Some conception is neces- 
sary in order to think about and discuss co- 
herently such arrangements of ideas, and this 
conception is association. Association is what 
first makes the reproduction of one idea by 
another possible. 



14. Quantitative Distinction between 
Associations. 

Now, as has been already remarked, we 
observe frequently that one arrangement or 
sequence of ideas may be harder to impress on 
the mind than another, and that certain ideas 
can be recalled more quickly and with greater 
certainty than others. Here we find a basis for 
quantitative distinctions between associations. 
This is provided by assuming that one associa- 



24 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

tion can be stronger or weaker than another. 
If one idea is recalled by another, we say the 
association between both is stronger than it 
would be if the idea could no longer be recalled. 
If one idea recalls another more quickly in one 
case than in another, we also say the association 
is stronger in the first instance, and so on. 



15. Problems Stated. 

Now, what makes an association strong or 
weak ? This is just what the experimental 
investigation of memory must try to find out. 
What influences determine the strength of an 
association ? Under what conditions can the 
strongest association be produced with the 
least amount of effort in the shortest time, and 
what will secure the recall of an idea at the 
most appropriate time, and at any desired 
time ? We shall proceed to enumerate these 
factors directly, but before doing so one or two 
general questions must be discussed briefly. 



CHAPTER III 
SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 

16. Is All Memory Mechanical ? 
Is there such a thing as a purely intelligible 
memory, or does all memory rest on the me- 
chanical basis indicated in the last chapter ? 
The general tendency at the present time is to 
hold that memory rests on a purely mechanical 
basis, that certain connections have to be made, 
and that there are certain conditions under 
which such connections are made strongest and 
most lasting. A good memory means, then, 
either the capacity for very strong associations, 
or the natural or acquired habit of producing 
the strongest and most lasting associations with 
the least labour. The question is of interest to 
the teacher. The answer just given does not 
mean, of course, that in learning a piece of 
verse, for instance, it is necessary only to get 
25 



26 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

up the words parrot-like without minding the 
sense. We shall see later on how wrong this is. 
It means that a however many thoughts are 
brought together, the necessity of acquiring the 
sequence of words by means of association of 
one word with the other will never be removed. 
On the other hand, these associations may be 
formed more rapidly by means of the ideas 
with which the words are already firmly con- 
nected in the mind — that is, by means of their 
sense. The thoughts of the verse, then, serve 
to bind groups of words together easily, and to 
.unite these groups into a whole. Any ideas 
introduced into the verse beyond what is sug- 
gested or made necessary by the verse itself, 
will not reduce the work to be done in forming 
the required association. They will, if any- 
thing, increase it by the amount of memory 
work to be done in linking the superfluous ideas 
to words which do not suggest them, and to 
one another, and then in getting rid of them. 
For if the verse is to be learnt properly and 
fluently, they must be got rid of. Memorising 
by the sense is easy, because the associations 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 27 

between the words and their sense have already 
been made, and it would mean more work to 
bind the mere words together by association 
than to associate their sense in its already 
developed form — complex thoughts. Yet the 
association between the word and its sense is in 
itself a mechanical one — that is, it is itself 
merely an association ; there is no intelligible 
intermediary binding the sense to the word. 
Any word could mean anything. This means 
that only the association with a meaning gives 
a word meaning. All memorising rests, there- 
fore, ultimately on a mechanical basis, whether, 
trains of words or thoughts be memorised. 
Whether there is not also some form of in- 
telligible memory, more especially in the sphere 
of thought, remains to be seen. Thoughts cer- 
tainly do bear relations to one another other 
than those of mere contiguity or succession in 
the mind. Possibly these relations might under 
certain circumstances fulfil functions analogous 
to those of memory. If so, we shall find out 
about them in good time. 



28 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

17. Has the Child a Better Memory than 
the Adult? 

There is a very widespread popular opinion 
which says that the memory of the child is 
stronger than that of the adult. Evidence of 
this is the fact that the child learns a language 
in a few years — a feat which a large number of 
adults feel to be beyond their power— not to 
speak of acquiring the accent properly. See 
how quickly the child retains small verses and 
fairy stories, and how ineradicable the memories 
of childhood are, even in the last years of the 
longest life. Our memories must have been 
stronger when we were young, we think. We 
rarely learn a verse of poetry now. We forget 
the contents of a novel in a month or two, if 
not in a day or two, after we have read it ; and 
as for remembering the past, why, it is often 
hard enough to remember what we did yester- 
day. Against all this, however, one may put 
the fact that we remember far more of the 
scenes of the year just gone than the child does. 
Moreover, the child learns very little of his 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 29 

language in the first few years, and any adult 
of average intelligence who might be surrounded 
by as much careful attention, and taught so 
persistently and carefully as the child, would 
learn in the same time far more than the child 
does. The child, however, has in so far the 
advantage, as his mind is unoccupied. It is 
to his ever-increasing advantage to learn con- 
tinually, and he has little to forget while doing 
so. On the other hand, the adult is settled 
in life ; he has adapted himself to his surround- 
ings, and usually does not want to learn any- 
thing new. As a matter of fact, it is not true 
that our memory is strongest from the first few 
years of life up to about the tenth or thirteenth \ 
year, and then begins to weaken. This has 
been proved by experiment. The same tests 
have been put to young children, school-chil- 
dren, and boys and girls up to the age of twenty, 
and these show that the older the learner, up to 
these limits, at least, the' quicker he learns and 
the better he remembers. It may, of course, 
be that the child does not know how to learn 
to advantage. On the other hand, he prob- 



30 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

ably does not go far wrong of his own accord. 
Yet, even if he did, he would certainly not 
learn so quickly or so well as the adult. He 
cannot concentrate his attention so closely nor 
for so long a time upon one object, and he has not 
the experience in thought to work upon which 
the adult is generally supposed to have. The 
will to learn and to remember is doubtless the 
most important of all influences in this regard. 
Every grown adult who keeps his mind mobile 
and is not suffering from weakness or disease, 
has as good a memory as ever he had. The 
trouble usually is, that we are either hypno- 
tised into inactivity and lack of enterprise by 
our own poor ideas of our powers, or by such 
ideas instilled into us by the countless thieves 
of souls, who go about the world telling people 
what they are at least not good for, helping 
them to overcome the difficulties of choosing 
a career in life by cutting off the possibilities. 
The experience of the earliest experimenter on 
memory has shown how much even passing 
opinions of one's power, and of the quality of 
the work one is doing, will affect the progress 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 31 

of that work. The rate and permanency of this 
psychologist's memory-work varied from day 
to day as his opinion of it. How much more, 
then, will not a strongly rooted idea of inability 
for any one kind of work lessen the progress 
of such work in spite of strong will to work, if it 
does not weaken the will which keeps one going ? 



18. Does Memory Run Parallel to 
Intelligence ? 

On the further question, whether memory 
goes hand in hand with intelligence, opinions 
differ. Some find that the cleverer boy has 
usually the better memory. We all know that 
most clever people have a good stock of ideas. 
But we often find a clever man who complains of 
having a bad memory. Now, in so far as reliable 
statistics have been gathered, it has been found 
that the greater intelligence is usually accom- 
panied by the better memory. There are, on 
the other hand, mentally afflicted people who 
have quite an extraordinary memory for words, 
and who have practically no intelligence at all. 



32 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

A good memory for facts is becoming less 
essential to intelligence of moderate or even 
more than average degree, than it used to be. 
Instead of collecting facts in one's head, one 
may, of course, equally well, though with much 
greater labour, collect them on paper. It is 
done to an extent undreamt of by many for 
every great work, just as it is done to such an 
extraordinary extent in business to-day. On 
the other hand, the collecting of many ideas in 
one's head is also a work of memory, just as 
much as the committing of strings of words or 
verses to memory. Moreover, too good a 
memory is not favourable to great intelligence. 
The mind gets cramped with the overwhelming 
mass of facts. General ideas and explanatory 
ideas do not occur so readily, because of the 
difficulty such a mind finds in abstracting from 
the full concreteness of the facts, and in seizing 
the essentials in any complex. Men with ex- 
traordinary memories tend to lose the ability 
to judge critically. They have often found 
great difficulty in understanding mathematical 
proofs. The highest type of mind, of course, 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 33 

combines the faculties of vivid and detailed 
memory with that of keen critical judgment. 
Its execution is brilliant, while its compre- 
hension is deep. But a good memory for 
groups of words, sounds, or the like, does 
not go hand in hand with good intelligence. 
Some evidence, too, has been gathered of late, 
that memory of thoughts is governed by laws 
different from those which regulate the memory 
for sequences of words and sounds. It has 
not yet been made out clearly, however, what 
psychological factors are involved in what we 
ordinarily call intelligence. But we may safely 
say that they are not identical with, nor de- 
pendent on those which have so far been found 
to be the basis of a good memory. 

19. How Much can be Done by Mere Effort 
of Attention ? 

It has often been supposed that a mind with 
a good memory is distinguished from other 
minds by the energy with which it can con- 
centrate its attention on the matter to be 
committed to memory. A great many people 

3 



34 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

believe that concentration of the attention is 
everything. There is in each student's life a 
time when he goes in for " concentration," and 
comes out each time with a headache, and in 
the end is not much the wiser. If he is fortu- 
nate, there is in his lif e another period in which 
he finds the hours fly by on wings, and every 
subject and every book distressingly interest- 
ing. He finds it hard to get on with his work 
because he finds everything else so attractive. 
If he comes put of this period, he may find a 
subject so absorbing that he forgets time and 
his other interests over it. There is now. no 
need to concentrate the attention. It con- 
centrates itself, and him too. One might even 
make it a rule for those who wish to cultivate 
the power of attention, to guard against think- 
ing about their attention at all,, and to get 
interested in some subject or the subject in 
hand. At a recent congress a gentleman with 
a remarkable memory allowed himself to be 
demonstrated to the assembled company. One 
of his performances was to learn a series of 
three hundred figures by heart in fifteen minutes 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 35 

or thereabout, and say them backwards, for- 
wards, up and down, any way, at the end of 
the time. In the discussion which followed it 
was suggested that the gentleman accomplished 
this wonderful feat by one determined and 
extreme act of concentrated attention. But 
nobody knows exactly what attention is, and 
everyone has a different theory about it. To 
try to explain anything at all with the help of 
such a conception, is out of the question. We 
must try to explain the working of memory 
by means of the factors which are known to 
operate on it, and to discover any others with 
which we are not yet acquainted. People 
know, of course, what you mean when you tell 
them to be more attentive. To be attentive 
means to give oneself up more exclusively to one 
thing at a time and to one thing for some length 
of time ; but every state of attention is brought 
about by some definite influence working on the 
thinker.* 

* Attention is thus rather a long-continued activity or 
state of mind than an influence capable of producing definite 
changes in the mind, as, for example, an intention is. 

3-2 



36 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

Attentiveness never occurs spontaneously in 
the absolute sense of this word. It may occur 
in an individual without any stimulus from 
without him, but there is always a cause for 
its occurrence. The temperature of the skin 
may rise by the influx of heat from the sur- 
rounding air, as, for instance, on a . hot day ; 
or from within, by changes in the organism itself, 
as, for instance, in a fever or during muscular 
activity. But the temperature never rises 
entirely without cause. There is always some 
influence present, in whose absence the increase 
of heat would not take place. In the same 
way there is no such thing as spontaneous 
combustion. There is, of course, what is called 
spontaneous combustion, as when a mass of 
oil takes fire " of itself " (above a certain tem- 
perature). But no chemist would think of 
this as spontaneous combustion in any absolute 
sense. So in psychology there is nothing that 
happens in the mind — no change of thought, 
or will, or feeling — but has its determining 
condition, although a great part of the work- 
ings of the mind may certainly be occasioned 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 37 

by preceding events in the mind itself. Our 
actions are often influenced by our preceding 
feelings and thoughts, and what we call choice 
is an event which is essentially dependent on 
preceding thoughts and feelings. One may cer- 
tainly do as one likes, but that does not signify 
action without a cause, but action determined 
by a limited set of feelings, or by the thought 
of doing the opposite of what one might have 
been expected to do. It is possible, of course, 
to allow action to be determined by impulse, 
or by the promptness and importunity with 
which the one or the other course offers itself 
to the uncontrolled mind. So, when asked 
" Right or left ?" "Heads or tails ?" one may 
choose according as the one or the other 
word gets to the tongue first. But there are 
definite causes which decide this, too, as can be 
proved by psychological experiment. So, too, 
with the idea of attention. According to our 
present knowledge, there is no unitary cause 
which produces the effect known as the state 
or process of attention. It does not seem at 
all probable either, that, when psychologists 



38 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

have done with finding out what factors in- 
fluence attention for good or bad, there will 
be left any unitary process or anything at all 
which could be called attention. Attention 
is a popular name for a complex of states or 
processes of mind. 



20. Memory and the Energy of Mind 
Available. 

Nor must one think that the mind has at its 
disposal a certain amount of energy greater in 
one man than in another, or greater in the same 
person at one time than at another. The 
energy at the disposal of the mind is, as in all 
other manifestations of energy, dependent upon 
the amount of energy which is let loose by the 
factors operating at the given moment. The 
operations of the mind are limited in their 
degree only by the intensity and number* of 
the influences working on it, and by its own 
carrying capacity. We know only vaguely the 
commonest actual limits to its power. We 
know practically nothing about the limits of 



SOME GENERAL QUESTIONS 39 

its possible power. As a matter of fact, we 
observe differences in mental power from 
person to person, and more so from animal to 
man. The evolution of mind already realised 
suggests the idea of developments which we, of 
course, are not in the least able to foresee — 
developments which will raise the human mind 
much farther above its present state than it is 
at present above the mind of the higher animals. 



CHAPTER IV 
THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 

21. Immediate Memory. 

There are things which are learnt as soon as 
heard. A spoken sentence, a friend's address, 
a series of half a dozen numbers can be re- 
peated after one hearing. Such impressions 
leave behind them full and clear memory pic- 
tures which endure for some little time. If 
words have been spoken, we still bear in mind 
our friend's voice, and may even be able to 
imitate his pronunciation exactly. This kind 
of memory is often called immediate memory. 
The power of such immediate memory differs 
slightly in different people, and especially 
amongst children. Apart from the general 
ability to retain sounds or colours, which varies 
a good deal, the power of immediate memory 
seems to be dependent on the momentary 
40 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 41 

strength of the motives to remember, and 
on the absence of distraction and excitement 
in the learner. It is also easier to recall a 
series of words or numbers, a certain number of 
seconds after the last one has been uttered, than 
before this or later. The successful repetition 
of such a series of numbers gives a feeling of 
satisfaction which, if the series is just at the 
limit of its length, is sharply contrasted by the 
feeling of confusion and helplessness which 
supervenes when reproduction fails. At a 
certain point the learner's hold on what has 
been heard, seems to relax completely, and he 
sits in confused silence, or murmurs inco- 
herently. 



22. The Number of Repetitions. 

Longer series of words or numbers are com- 
mitted to memory after several repetitions, and 
in general, within the limits of ordinary prac- 
tice, the greater the number of repetitions, the 
stronger is the resulting memory of the matter 
learned. Beyond a certain point, however, an 



42 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

increased number of repetitions brings no 
advantage, but produces only headache or a 
feeling of stupidity. Provided there has been 
no change of pronunciation or intonation from 
time to time, the mental picture derived from 
a number of repetitions may be just as clear 
as that derived from only one. One can, for 
example, remember distinctly all the sound 
changes in a recitation learned from the phono- 
graph. But if a living voice, with its continual 
change of tone and manner, repeats the matter 
to be learned, it is obvious that only the general 
effect of all the readings will be impressed upon 
the memory. The final sound-picture in the 
mind will be made up of a number of features 
of greater or less distinctness, whose character 
will depend upon what the learner specially 
listened to, and what for any reason was im- 
pressed upon him more vividly from time to 
time. 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 43 

23. The Shortest Association is the 
Strongest. 

The general effect of a number of repetitions 
is little by little to increase the strength of the 
association between one word or number and 
the following. That such an association has 
been formed is shown by the fact that a series 
of words, too long to be recalled, is very 
often, on a second hearing, at least recognised 
as having been heard already. Each repe- 
tition serves to strengthen these associations, 
till the presence of the first member of the 
series enables the learner to repeat the whole 
series if he wishes to do so. It has been found 
further that associations are formed not only 
between each word of a series learnt and the 
next, but between each word and the second 
next, the third next, and so on. The strongest 
association is naturally that between two suc- 
cessive words of a series — the shortest association, 
so to speak. The longer an association — i.e., 
the farther apart in time the ideas are which it 
connects in the mind, the weaker it is. Thus, 



44 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

each word brought to mind prepares a number 
of those which follow, so that the association 
which serves to recall each word gradually 
increases in active power until the actual 
moment of recall. 



24. Some Helps and Hindrances to the 
Formation of Correct Associations. 

Now, it is obvious that, in order to learn any 
sequence of ideas correctly, it will be necessary 
to form the proper associations between these 
ideas. They must be strong enough to excite 
each other in the proper order. If, for any 
reason, the association between one idea and 
the second one following be stronger than that 
between it and the first following, it will in al] 
likelihood recall the second one rather than the 
first. The second idea will thereupon recall the 
third and the fourth, and so on, and one idea, 
a word or a sentence, as the case may be, will 
be omitted. Care must be taken, therefore, to 
keep what has to be learned in its proper order. 
It is well in learning anything to read it over 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 45 

very carefully, more especially the first time. 
The first repetition is known to contribute more 
towards the formation of associations than 
any succeeding single repetition. The first 
repetition must be correct : not only must the 
sequence of words be correct, but it must be as 
correct as possible in every essential detail, 
pronunciation, and the like. It is advisable 
further to avoid the attempt to recall from 
memory alone, without looking at the matter 
to be learned, until some confidence in recall is 
gained. It is especially during these efforts to 
recall that the varying strength of the associa- 
tions formed is of most decisive effect. For one 
reason or another — perhaps because a certain 
word is more familiar, or has been already 
associated with another, or because one has 
looked from one word to another in the page 
several times — some associations are often 
stronger than the one which should operate at 
any given moment. A word is then recalled 
out of place, and every time this happens the 
false association becomes much stronger, the 
more so if it is not at once corrected by a glance 



46 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

at the book. Every halt or doubt ought to 
bring the learner's eyes at once to the book. A 
wrong association is very hard to eradicate. 
It introduces an element of competition into 
the working of the associations, and if a wrong 
association has become powerful enough to 
recall its word, the consequence will be that, in 
order to repress it, the correct association will 
have to be worked up to much beyond the 
strength necessary for the reproduction of its 
word, had no false and competing association 
been formed. To make the correct association 
compelling, it will have to be raised to that 
strength which will enable it to reproduce its 
w^ord more quickly than the false association 
can reproduce its word. This means a great 
deal of useless and unnecessary labour. All 
rival associations — that is to say, all associa- 
tions which may become active under the same 
conditions and at the same time — hinder or 
block one another. The typical and normal 
form of all stable nervous action is that in which 
only one idea or action takes effect. All rivalry 
means great waste of power. 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 47 

25. Inferences. 

A number of inferences may be drawn from 
these facts. It is better to learn slowly than 
to learn fast, and in so doing run the risk of 
learning a great many errors. This is especially 
true of learning languages. Many people 
attempt to converse freely in a foreign language 
before they have the necessary grammatical 
and syntactical knowledge. The result is that 
they either never, or very slowly and with 
great effort, eradicate the errors to which they 
become accustomed. Children who are ac- 
quiring knowledge ought to hear wrong state- 
ments of fact as seldom . as possible, even 
although these may be corrected at once. 
Of course, where reasoning is involved, the 
demonstration of the falsity of a statement is 
quite a different mental process, and does not 
necessarily make the truth any less convincing 
or evident. Further, hesitation being a sign 
of a momentary weakness of recall, a child 
who hesitates usually should not be allowed to 
give a wrong answer. The teacher should let 



48 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

another child give the correct answer, or himself 
give it. By giving a wrong answer the child 
does a good deal to make the learning of the 
correct thing more difficult. By giving the 
correct statement at such a moment of hesita- 
tion one may, on the other hand, just win the 
victory for correctness of recall in the child's 
mind. For the same reason all guessing should 
be forbidden. Not only does it make wrong 
associations, but it also discourages the attempt 
to remember. One of the evils of attempting 
work that is beyond one's power consists in the 
number of wrong ideas and methods acquired. 
It need hardly be mentioned that children had 
better be trained to do what is right, than not 
to do what is wrong. 

26. Learning in Whole or in Parts. 

(a) Familiar Matter. 

Now we have seen how to carry out a series 
of repetitions a further question arises : Is it 
advisable, in memorising a piece of some length, 
to learn it bit by bit, or by reading it through 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 49 

from beginning to end each time ? Ordinary 
experience is agreed that it is better to learn 
little by little. It would hardly occur to any- 
one in learning a hundred lines of verse to read 
the whole hundred through time after time till 
they had been committed to memory. The 
learner begins with the first set of lines which 
form a unit, and commits these to memory ; it 
may be by repeating the first two lines till he 
has them by heart, then, stitching on to these 
the third and fourth lines, gradually working 
up to the first eight, and so on till the whole 
set of fines is learnt. These he repeats once 
or twice till he has them well under control, 
and then, if he is not tired, he learns the next 
section, and so on. A great deal may be said 
for this procedure, which practically everybody 
follows. Curiously enough, the results of ex- 
periments have shown that this method is by no 
means economical. It has been found that a 
piece of poetry can be learned with fewer repe- 
titions if it is read through as a whole at each 
repetition than if it is learned in bits. Nor is 
it hard to make this result plausible. Think of 

4 



50 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

the number of false and useless associations 
formed by learning in bits. Two lines are 
repeated several times, and at each repetition 
an association is formed between the end of the 
second line and the beginning of the first. Then 
the third and fourth lines are treated in the same 
way, the end of the fourth being linked up to 
the beginning of the third. When the two 
pairs are connected, we have a new association 
between the second and third and the fourth 
and first lines, both of which compete with 
already formed associations. It is obvious 
that if this is continued all through the piece 
the mass of associations formed becomes very 
complex, while only a small number of those 
formed are ultimately of use. All the others 
are so many pitfalls. If 100 lines of verse were 
learned in this way in twos or fours — say, 
verses from Pope — there would be formed 
between the lines 198 or 148 associations, of 
which only 100 would ultimately be required. 
Every second one of these would be blocked by 
two useless associations, and in order to be safe 
from their power would have to be raised to a 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 51 

much greater strength than would otherwise 
have been necessary. In time the strength of 
all the associations formed would decrease, and 
those necessary to correct repetition of the verses, 
being in many cases formed later than the false 
associations, would lose strength more rapidly 
than these. Thus, in the end many of the false 
associations would be the more powerful and 
therefore effective. For this reason many 
people find that what they have learned they 
can recall fluently up to a certain point, but that 
everything after that is a blank, except the 
beginning of the piece or the beginning of one of 
the verses before the point of breakdown. If 
such a calamity is to be avoided, study should 
as far as possible consist in continued revisal 
or repetition of the whole performance. It is 
worth while repeating the whole many times 
for the sake of the part, if the stake is great. 
Even little children may with advantage learn 
their little sets of verses by reading and repeat- 
ing them time after time straight through. Just 
think how well they will remember a fairy story, 
which they so seldom hear or read in instal- 

4—2 



52 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

ments, and which they will hardly suffer to 
be broken off, however often they may have 
heard them before. 



27. (6) Matter with Special Difficulties. 

But must the whole piece be gone through 
always ? Is there no exception to this rule ? 
Suppose there were some particularly difficult 
point in the piece, would it not be better to 
practise it separately till it was mastered, and 
then to learn the piece as a whole ? It seems 
clear that many repetitions would thereby be 
saved. Trial has confirmed this. Of course 
we are already familiar with most words of 
our mother-tongue, and in learning poetry, for 
instance, we may with advantage learn by repe- 
tition in wholes. But if it were necessary to 
get up a series of words of a language we do not 
understand, it would be better to make our- 
selves acquainted first with the single words or 
syllables by repeating each several times over, 
singly, or in twos or threes, and at increasing 
speed. So we accustom our tongue to their 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 53 

pronunciation, our ear to their sound, and our 
mind's eye to their look. In other words, 
technique must be acquired largely by itself. 
We must concentrate the attention upon it in 
special study till it is mastered. Then, when 
we meet it in the course of some piece of work, 
we shall not be brought to a stop by it. So the 
mind will be free to absorb what is embodied in 
the larger build of the piece in hand. This is 
one reason why technique is made a matter of 
special study. Familiar matter, then, may be 
learned as a whole ; unf amiliar matter must be 
studied bit by bit, even at the risk of false 
associations, until it becomes familiar. The 
learner need not be told what is familiar matter 
and what not. Let him be guided by his feel- 
ing. If he finds any part specially difficult, let 
him study it by itself first. Then let him learn 
it with the piece in which it stands, and as a 
subordinate element in this piece. 



54 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

28. (c) Very Long Pieces. 

Suppose, now, a thousand or ten thousand 
verses were to be learnt by heart : how would 
it best be done ? Sit down and read through 
the ten thousand until we had them off ? 
Who could endure this ? A few wrong associa- 
tions do not matter much. We can tolerate 
them, and devote a little time to driving them 
out afterwards. We must come down to the 
level of human power, and encourage the will 
as much as possible. This we do by gratifying 
the impatience of the learner, and by encourag- 
ing him to conquer slowly. A moderate num- 
ber of lines may be learned each time. Their 
acquisition will gratify the learner, make him 
partly independent of his text, and give him 
food for thought. And thus in small stages he 
may work towards the great accomplishment. 
This is no doubt largely responsible for the 
general habit of learning in fragments. But 
for those who know that the method of learn- 
ing in wholes is economical, and have energy 
to go on with it as far as they can, there is no 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 55 

need of such a stimulant. Of course, where 
the work done in committing anything 
to memory is very small compared with the 
study put into it after the memory work is 
complete, it does not much matter by what 
methods the memorising is accomplished. 
Memorising is, then, not the aim of the 
work, but an unimportant incident in its 
course. 



29. The Distribution of Repetitions. 

We are often called upon to remember things 
— e.g., music, verse, speeches, trains of facts 
and ideas — which may have to be repeated very 
many times before they become permanent 
possessions. Is it better to learn as much as 
possible at one time, or ought one to learn a 
little one day, a little next day, and so on ? 
Such a question, of course, we cannot decide 
on the basis of general and unsystematic ob- 
servation and inference, but only by experi- 
ment. One of the earliest experimenters on 
memory tried to decide the question in the 



56 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

following manner : He learned a lengthy piece 
at one sitting, with just seventeen consecutive 
repetitions, and thereafter recited it fifty-one 
times ; next day relearnt the piece, with seven 
repetitions, holding the difference to be due 
to the memory effect of the first day's work. 
This he compared with the number of repeti- 
tions necessary to relearn a perfectly similar 
piece of matter which had previously been 
repeated thirty-eight times during the course of 
three days — for instance, seventeen times the 
first day, twelve times the next, and nine times 
the third day. He found that more repetitions 
were needed to relearn a piece after the one set 
of sixty-eight repetitions than after thirty-eight 
repetitions spread over three successive days. 
This first fragmentary result was worked out 
more elaborately later, and it was found that 
the more the repetitions are distributed over a 
series of days, the stronger is the memory in 
the end, and the fewer repetitions are necessary, 
on the whole, for relearning. For instance, of 
the three following arrangements — three sittings 
of eight repetitions each, six of four, and twelve 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 57 

of two — the last is the most favourable 
to learning ; in other words, fewer repeti- 
tions will be needed to learn, more will be 
remembered, and this will be recalled more 
quickly. It is better both for learning and 
for remembering to spread the repetitions 
over some time. " 



30. Inferences. 

What does this mean ? It means that in 
committing anything to memory not too much 
work should be done at one time. Of course 
it would not do to be guided only by the con- 
sideration of the number of repetitions, other- 
wise one's work would be spread over too 
long a time ; the helping element of interest 
might be weakened, and annoyance and disgust 
might even arise. There are many kinds of 
matter which it would be more satisfactory to 
learn with considerable effort during a few 
sittings than with much less effort during a 
dozen or two dozen days, each bringing its 
small dose of monotony. But in general it is 



58 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

better not to do much of the work of committing 
matter to memory at one time. For instance, 
if poetry is to be learned by heart, and suffi- 
cient leisure is allowed, it should be read over 
carefully a few times at first, with close atten- 
tion to meaning and interpretation. When 
these have been exhausted, it should be re- 
peated till it can be said by heart once. Then, 
if the work is put aside for a short time — a day 
or a number of hours — and any attempt to 
recall it during this interval is carefully avoided, 
in order that the somewhat unstable associa- 
tions may not be confused, probably one or 
two more readings will then suffice to insure 
its correct repetition by heart any number of 
times afterwards. On the other hand, if the 
number of readings is pushed too far the first 
time, the learner is liable to become confused 
and depressed, and to increase the final labour 
of learning by making errors. 

There is no need to despair if, shortly after 
the end of the first set of readings, nothing of 
what has been learned can be repeated. The 
attempt to recall is itself harmful. Let the 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 59 

work be resumed quietly once or twice, and the 
memory of it will grow gradually, and be strong 
in the end. One of the reasons why so many 
people think they have a bad memory is be- 
cause they have found themselves unable to 
make a permanent record of any matter at one 
sitting. Being led to a brave effort rather, 
perhaps, by emulation of others than by the love 
of remembering, they are discouraged by their 
failure to recall what they had learnt so well 
and hard the day before. They are then con- 
vinced they have no memory, and determine 
not to try again. Had they come back to their 
task once or twice, and not exhausted their 
good-will at the first, they would certainly 
have succeeded. Any ordinary person can 
learn anything if he will only go about it in 
the proper way. 

31. By learning several things by heart 
simultaneously, interest and impetus in work 
can be attained, while the greatest economy of 
memory is secured by wide distribution of 
repetitions. Suppose three pieces of verse or 



60 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

chapters of facts are to be learned. Let the plan 
of work be as follows : 



First Day 


2 or 3 


repetitions 


of 1st pie 


Followed by 


2 „ 3 


>> 


2nd „ 


»> 


2 „ 3 


99 


3rd „ 


Second Day 


2 „ 3 


if 


2nd „ 


Followed by 


2 „ 3 


99 


3rd „ 


>> 


2 „ 3 


>> 


1st „ 


Third Day 


2 „ 3 


5> 


3rd „ 


Followed by 


2„ 3 


>> 


1st „ 


» 


2 „ 3 


>> 


2nd „ 



and so on, till they are acquired. Such or 
similar procedure is suitable for any kind of 
memory work, whether it be verses, spelling, 
geography, dates, or any other mainly associa- 
tive groups of facts. With this plan of work, 
however, one must remember that it is not good 
to try to recall between days. Nor, if teaching 
by distributed repetitions, should pupils be 
tested until one feels sure that the most of them 
will recall correctly. Then those with better 
memory should be tested first. Their correct 
answers will serve as extra repetitions for those 
whose memories are less nimble and tenacious. 
In conclusion an interesting inference may be 
noticed. If the work of learning has been 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 61 

divided so as to save most labour, the teacher 
or learner will for some short time get little or 
no conscious return for his work. More em- 
phatically, he should get no return in the early- 
periods of work. Not till some time has 
elapsed will actual recall, and still less imagi- 
native or creative production, be possible. 

Abilities which rest upon the experience of 
months or years are also only slowly acquired. 
Ready command of a language, or of a game 
like golf, the mechanical fluency of type-writing 
or stenography, and ripe general experience 
itself are all preceded by a long period in 
which no advance, but rather the contrary, seems 
to be made. This is a necessary result of the 
fact that in these complicated activities many 
situations recur only at somewhat long intervals. 
But in good time the learner assumes command. 

32. Old Associations Lose Strength less 
rapidly than New Ones. 

The discovery of the effect of the distribu- 
tion of readings leads to the important theo- 
retical statement that an association which 



62 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

has been formed by repetition or any other 
means decreases in strength rapidly at first, 
more slowly afterwards, and then hardly any 
more. For if associations lost strength gradu- 
ally and proportionately to the intervening 
time, it would not make the slightest difference 
whether readings were accumulated or dis- 
tributed. The result would be the same both 
ways. Now we have noticed how, even when 
the best methods are used, the various associa- 
tions within a piece which hold it together in 
the mind may be of very different strength. 
Some may at first have been wrongly formed, 
and in order to force them into line, may then 
have received exaggerated encouragement. 
Others may have had to be specially practised 
to become easy, and so on. It is therefore ob- 
vious that complete and correct recall now is 
not a guarantee of such recall at any future 
time. How, then, shall we know if what has 
been well learned has become a permanent pos- 
session of the memory ? The answer may be 
inferred from the above rule. Time will show 
the weak members. After the piece has been 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 63 

brought to a state of correct and fluent recall, 
it should be left completely alone for a week, 
a month, or three months, according to cir- 
cumstances. Then let its recall be tested en- 
tirely without warning or preparation. If it 
is still correctly and promptly recalled, it has 
become a more or less permanent possession 
of the memory. All the weak points in the 
work of learning will show themselves in the 
inability to recall, in hesitations or slight 
pauses in recall, or merely in a feeling of un- 
certainty as to correctness. Correct and sure 
recall ought to bring with it the assurance 
of its correctness. To make learning com- 
plete at this stage, if it be desirable, the piece 
should be repeated several times, and special 
attention given to the weak points revealed 
by the test. 

33. The Persistence of Ideas. 
With the help of one of the methods of recall, 
it has been shown further that not only asso- 
ciations, but even ideas themselves, gradually 
fade from the mind's view. Our mental ini- 



64 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

pressions do not disappear at once, but for the 
first few minutes after their origin they are in a 
state of strong but quickly decreasing activity. 
During this time they are still stamping them- 
selves upon the mind, and producing stronger 
associations with one another. Such a per- 
sistence of ideas is well known. Experiences 
leave their impression, as we say. Only after 
some time are we able to drive them from our 
mind, and it may very often happen that they 
reappear there time and again, in spite of our 
desire to be rid of them. Seen in such light, 
this habit which impressions have of persisting 
in the mind may seem to be a very undesirable 
one. But it brings with it many advantages. 
For one thing, it means that the process of 
learning does not cease with the actual work of 
learning, but that, if not disturbed, this pro- 
cess runs on of itself for a time, and adds a little 
to the result of our labours. It also means 
that, if it is to our advantage to stand in readi- 
ness with some word or thought, we shall be 
able to do so, if only this word or thought recur 
to us but once, some time before the critical 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 65 

moment. So we remember to keep a promise, 
to pay a call, to make a remark at the proper 
time, even though we turn our mind to other 
work or talk for some hours between. We can 
do this, because, if not vigorously prevented, 
ideas and words keep on reappearing in the 
mind. People differ very much in this regard. 
There are persons whose ideas persist and recur 
so steadily that they never fail to remember 
engagements and duties at the proper moment. 
Others are much more forgetful, as we say. 
And yet many a person who is accounted for- 
getful has a much more tenacious and sys- 
tematic memory than one who forgets no en- 
gagement or intention. Strong persistence of 
ideas shows itself in the difficulty many people 
feel in turning their mind to a new piece of 
work. The work just finished will not loosen 
its hold on their mind quickly enough. So 
the weary work of mending broken fragments 
of an argument may steal an hour from sleep. 
Many people dread any serious interruption 
in work, not because of the time lost, but be- 
cause it is hard for them to pick up the thread 

5 



66 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

of their work again owing to the persistence of 
ideas foreign thereto. On the other hand, there 
are many who find no difficulty in falling 
asleep immediatsly after hard work, and who 
can answer a question or see a friend in their 
working hours without any inconvenience. 

34. A Pause after Learning. 

It is important that nothing be done to 
weaken the persistence of ideas which follows 
the process of learning, for we should thereby 
waste a part of our efforts. To remove some 
unpleasant impression from the mind, how- 
ever, we naturally turn the attention vigorously 
to some other subject, and so weaken the 
hold of the unpleasant ideas. On ceasing the 
effort to learn, therefore, it is not advisable to 
turn the mind at once to another subject. It is 
better to allow it to rest for some five minutes. 
Let it wander as it will. If a number of un- 
connected facts have to be learned, do not 
crowd one after another in quick succession 
upon your mind, but take them quietly and 
slowly, giving each time to settle into its place. 






THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 67 

Of course it is hardly necessary to remind the 
learner that any memory work done while the 
mind is fresh is much more likely to be of 
service later than work done in a state of 
fatigue. 

35. Learning with Periodic Pauses. 

It is not merely the engagement of the effort 
to learn and the formation of new associations 
which, by preventing the learner from thinking 
of what he has learned, lessen the efficiency 
of associations just formed. It is rather the 
presence of any mental activity quickly follow- 
ing another that is injurious. Even looking 
through a book of commonplace pictures will 
lessen the effect of any preceding memory work. 
In the hope of benefiting by this fact, the 
experiment has been made of introducing 
into the course of learning, pauses of such a 
length that they would not materially inter- 
rupt the formation of associations. This was 
found to be of great advantage. Pauses of 
about a second's duration or more, according 
to the circumstances, refresh the mind, give it 

5—2 



68 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

a short breathing-space, as it were, and increase 
the speed of memorising and the duration of 
retention. The simplest and most elaborate 
styles of speaking and writing are governed by 
this need for periodic rest. They relieve the 
mind of the speaker, and give the listener time 
to grasp what has been said. A full stop is 
very often more helpful to the reader than a 
conjunction, just because it allows of a short 
pause, over which the associative activity of 
thought springs more easily than it would if 
supported by " and." Even poetry is to some 
extent characterised by periodic rests. When a 
series of syllables is learnt by heart, it is found 
that, first of all, those at the beginning and the 
end of the series cling to the memory, and that 
the series gradually closes up towards the middle. 
When a short pause is introduced into the 
middle of the series, the bridge has two spans : 
it starts to grow from the beginning, from the 
end, and from the middle in both directions, 
and closes up at two places simultaneously. 
Each pause is a point of early growth. The 
more of these there are, with due regard to 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 69 

the nature of the work, the sooner is the bridge 
complete. 

36. Rhythm. 

Poetry makes use of another very powerful 
support to memory — namely, rhythm. Rhythm 
is a most important element in all kinds of 
mental and muscular activity. Work is notori- 
ously much easier if a rhythm of work is given. 
The workmen on the street hammer in a 
rhythm because the necessary muscular effort 
is then made much more mechanically. It is 
excited and liberated, not by a conscious effort 
of will, but by the sequence of hammer 
blows, which almost reflexly releases the re- 
quired impulse. Migrating birds take their 
turn in the van. They make pace for the 
others, just as is done on the racing-track. It 
is much harder to produce an acceleration 
of work voluntarily than to follow with one's 
efforts an accelerating rhythm given by another. 

3 Rhythm is also a powerfu l aid to memory. It 
forms an extra association between the varied 

' : stress it brings and the syllable so stressed, 



70 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

and so binds the whole more firmly together. 
Rhythm eases the course of recall and makes 
it more fluent. On the other hand, distinct 
injury is caused to the memory of anything 
once acquired when it is relearnt in a different 
rhythm. To change the rhythm is like learn- 
ing a new thing, and relearning under such 
circumstances entails much more work than re- 
learning usually does. But we naturally fall 
into the rhythm of anything written in our own 
language, and we have a natural tendency to 
impose rhythms on all our mental and bodily 
work. Rules are therefore hardly needed. 
The rhythm suitable to what is to be learned 
should be adhered to strictly, of course. Where 
there is no such rhythm, the learner may impose 
his own, but let him hold fast to the rhythm he 
selects. 

37. Learning under Pressure. 

Let us now consider the case in which only a 

limited time is available for committing a piece 

to memory. Is it better to repeat the matter 

to be learned as often and as fast as possible, 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 71 

or should one read it slowly and carefully ? 
In answer to this question, experiment has 
shown that it is better to read fast, though not 
so fast that clear pronunciation and clear grasp 
of the sense of what is being learned becomes 
difficult or impossible. The young pupil who 
has left himself little time to prepare his lesson 
commits it to memory at the highest possible 
speed. But as fast as possible is not always 
best. There are two most favourable rates. 
One of these is a good deal faster than the 
other, and is specially suitable when the matter 
to be learned is familiar, and when the learner 
is quick in speech and action, or accustomed 
to learning mechanically, without conscious 
deliberation. The other is more suitable 
when the matter is unfamiliar or difficult, 
and when the learner is one who works 
slowly and thoughtfully. Such a learner 
often forms rational connections in thought 
between the successive elements of what 
he has to learn. With the slower rate, he 
has time to recall these supporting ideas, 
which in turn give him a feeling of security 



72 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

and confidence in his memory. The main 
disadvantage of reading very slowly is that 
there is time for all sorts of irrelevant thoughts 
to slip in. These do not necessarily sup- 
port the associations formed, and have 
ultimately to be driven out. In general, 
it is well to suit the speed of reading to 
the matter in hand, which in all essentials 
must be fully grasped and understood. So it 
becomes clear that increase of speed is merely 
the means by which the mental energy is con- 
centrated upon one end. It does not of itself 
produce more lasting memories. Of course, 
when one is learning diligently, the rate of 
repetition and complete acquisition increases 
the nearer one approaches the point of free 
repetition by heart, 

38. Localisation. 

System is an aid to memory. Each word 
learned is associated with its place in the 
system, and can be recalled at the proper time 
by means of this association, which is usually 
strong, easily formed, and unambiguous. 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 73 

Localisation in a scheme also makes it possible 
to recall any definite word directly, because 
of the association of the word with its position 
among the others — that is, with the image or 
the number of the place in which it stands. 
So advantageous is this association, that one of 
the most ancient systems of memories was 
based on it. Simonides was accustomed to 
associate the number, names, or topics he 
wished to memorise with the different rooms 
of his house, or with the furniture of each room. 
On letting the familiar plan of his house and 
of each room pass before his mind, he could 
easily recall what had been associated with 
each part. In this method many modern 
systems of memory training have followed him. 
Localisation is a greater help to the memory 
with somewhat unfamiliar matter than with 
familiar matter. Number forms and schemes 
are found only among those who experience 
some difficulty in working with numbers. To 
the ready calculator numbers present them- 
selves not in a curve picture or as a circle 
or a zigzag, but directly as printed or spoken 



74 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

symbols. To him, again, all extra associa- 
tions and aids are an encumbrance. Localisa- 
tion is naturally of greatest benefit to those 
who visualise well. They retain in their mind's 
eye a distinct picture of what they have seen, 
and with a little effort can recall it so clearly 
that they can read from it as from a book. 
Beginners and children often find it helpful to 
see new words and terms written and explained 
in a certain plan. There can be no doubt that 
one of the reasons why poetry is so easily re- 
membered is its neat division into a series of 
lines lying one below the other. A good 
arrangement helps the mind to grasp and re- 
member a discourse, an argument, a descrip- 
tion, in fact, almost anything. But it must 
not be forgotten that there are people who 
hardly visualise at all. Their mental pictures 
are either very limited and faint, or they do 
not have such things. Such people will gain 
little from pictorial localisation, though it 
is possible that it may aid them in othei 
ways, as, for instance, by the association it 
brings with the name of the place in the 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 75 

scheme, by its acoustical arrangement in a 
certain sequence, by the mere thought of its 
place, and so on. 



39. The Will to Remember. 

The experimental work on memory ha3 
shown one very important thing — namely, 
that the will to learn has an enormous influence 
on the amount that can be learned and the 
speed of learning. It is one of the most im- 
portant factors in the process of learning, and 
will do more to increase the actual work done 
by the memory than almost any other factor 
mentioned up till now. While attention to 
the other rules frees the memory from many 
influences which weaken its strength and blunt 
its accuracy, it is the will to remember which 
frees it from its own inertia, and gives it active 
power. Most people are unaware what their 
memory will do, if it is only put to work. 
Actual experiment has shown that the most 
astonishing results can be obtained by the 
mere effort of the will to memorise, quite apart 



76 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

from all tricks and memory systems. One reason 
for our belief that in childhood our memory was 
much better is probably the fact that we were 
then under school discipline, and were drilled to 
effort by periodic examinations. When pushed 
by the results of our own negligence, we could 
easily cram the work of weeks into a day or 
two. Afterwards, when the motive or com- 
pulsion to exert the will in this way is gone, 
we tend to imagine that our memory too is 
gone. It has often been noticed that things 
may be read or repeated an indefinite number 
of times without being committed to memory, 
if only the attention is directed at each repeti- 
tion to some other end than that of learning. 
One experimenter on memory, for instance, 
had occasion, in the course of his work, to 
make those persons, on whom he was experi- 
menting, learn series of words and meaningless 
syllables by reading these aloud from his note- 
book, till they could repeat them by heart. 
Even after accomplishing this with a number of 
persons, he found that he himself was unable 
to repeat any of the series by heart, although 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 77 

he had read them aloud so often. His atten- 
tion had, of course, been directed towards 
careful, even, and correct reading, and not 
towards memorising. So, in other situations, 
if one wishes to learn by heart, one must con- 
tinually keep the intention to do so in the 
forefront of attention, never allowing the mind 
to slip off for long into other intentions, but 
making all of those subservient to the one 
main end. An eagerness and willingness to 
learn and a joy in making the effort are pre- 
suppositions of easy and rapid learning. Even 
with the intention to remember, increase in 
the power and speed of memory does not come 
by mere repetition, if the will is not exerted 
to attain such an increase. At first, of course, 
the will is hard to stir, but with practice it 
becomes more obedient, and then only one 
preliminary effort is necessary. Unpleasant 
though the work of memorising may be at 
first, the effort to remember, and the success 
that is sure to attend it, especially if the most 
economic methods be adopted, will bring about 
a change in feeling and will make the work 



78 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

pleasant. This was found to take place even 
when the matter to be learned was meaningless 
How much more pleasant will the effort be 
when matter is committed to memory which can 
delight the mind with its beauty, and engage 
it pleasantly when weary ! 



40. How Will aids Memory. 

Now, how does an effort of will make learning 
easy ? The learner's energy is directed to- 
wards one end, and is not distributed among 
several. Disturbing and distracting influ- 
ences are excluded, and the intention to re- 
member has free scope for its action. In every 
form of voluntary action the intention is a most 
important element.* 

* It is not a general state, more or less identical for all 
states of voluntary effort, as attention is ; but it is an active 
factor in the process of action, and can be brought into 
play in various ways — e.g., by imitation, by question, by 
command, or by resolve. It differs in nature and effect 
for each kind of instruction or command. The effect upon 
a pupil of the commands, Repeat your verse by heart, 
Translate it into English, Point out its beauty, is most 
decisive, and none the less actual as a mental process 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 79 

The intention is in many respects very much 
more powerful than the passive material of 
association, formed by repetition, upon which 
it acts, and to which it gives unity and in- 
dividuality. The attempt has been made to 
measure its power when pitted against well- 
trained associations, and it has been found that 
eighty repetitions of an irrelevant association 
will hardly suffice to overthrow the intention 
of a trained mind to answer correctly. There 
are some people whom it is practically impos- 
sible to upset in this way. If we wish them to 
respond to a series of single words in a specified 
way, and they can do this and firmly resolve 
to do it, we shall find that no number of 
repetitions will make strong enough the asso- 
ciations between the words of the series and 
other words whose recall we do not wish, 
so as to bring the wrong words out against 
the intention of such people. The will can be 
so well-trained that, whenever it is bent to a 

because it is so familiar. The difference in the commands 
is the cause of the difference in the action which follows 
them, whereas the attention may be quite similar in all. 



80 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

purpose, it will succeed, if success is at all pos- 
sible, however great the force of circumstance, 
association, or habit may be. For this, however, 
a careful choice of resolves, and thereafter the 
rigorous fulfilment of each, must become the 
habit of life. But it must not be thought that, 
although the intention can rise victorious over 
false lines of habit or association so persist- 
ently, it ceases to feel their influence. On the 
contrary, it cannot ever completely shake off 
their influence, for, as has already been said, 
all rivalry of associations means loss of power 
and speed of recall. This fact can be utilised 
for the detection of guilt even against the power 
of the firmest intention to conceal. To the 
skilful eye, and more surely to careful observa- 
tion of the time spent in answering, the pre- 
sence of irrelevant or incriminating thoughts 
and associations, even if they be not realised 
in the mind, is bound to show itself. Apart 
from systematic training of the will, however, 
every motive which can be brought to bear 
upon the chief intention to remember will 
relieve the will and make work easier. To set 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 81 

oneself a definite task to be completed in a 
given time is, for most people, the first step 
towards fulfilment. Then work begun is work 
done. In conclusion, the learner acquires by 
experience a knowledge of the more economical 
methods of learning. Of course, he will not 
recognise what can only be found out by a 
course of experiment and careful measurement, 
but he learns to avoid wasting his efforts, and 
he knows when he has done enough to be able 
to recall with confidence. He pays careful 
attention to difficult points in his work, and 
devotes himself to each of them specially. 
Meaningful associations suggested by the matter 
in hand are readily grasped, and useless ones 
do not suggest themselves. Above all, his 
feelings change, and the willing effort to learn 
brings with it in time a pleasure in learn- 
ing, which greatly aids the will. Even in 
ripe years an effort can produce astonishing 
results. 



82 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

41, Pleasant Results help Memory. 

It is not only in connection with will that 
pleasant feelings are an aid to memory. Even 
apart from it, there can be no doubt that the 
pleasure resulting from any act, intentional or 
accidental, stamps this act particularly vividly 
on the mind. Animals will sooner repeat an 
act which has once led to pleasant experiences 
than one of the many random and aimless 
attempts which may have preceded it. On 
the other hand, behaviour that has resulted in 
unpleasant experiences is much less likely to 
occur again. Thus animals learn their tricks 
and modify their habits. There is practically 
no other way of training them. The result of 
the desired action must be made pleasant, 
and the animal must be got to perform this 
action once, no matter how, so long as the 
displeasure caused by coercion and other cir- 
cumstances, is not greater than the pleasure 
resulting from the action. Soon it will per- 
form the action of itself, though slowly and 
hesitatingly. But if the result is uniformly 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 83 

pleasant, it will in a short time respond with 
alacrity to the slightest signal. In this regard 
children, and in a large degree all men, stand 
on the same level as animals. They like to 
do what gives them pleasure, and will put 
themselves to any inconvenience to attain 
their ends. Not only that, but anything done 
or learned that leads to pleasure or benefit of 
any kind is thereby stamped more firmly in 
the mind than it would have been had its out- 
come been unpleasant. 



42. Trust the Memory. 

The results embodied in the preceding para- 
graphs yield one rule, which puts the seal upon 
all learning conducted by correct and economical 
methods. Learn well and trust your memory. 
Let us consider for a little what happens when 
distrust of memory arises, as it does so very 
often in many people. First of all, distrust of 
memory discourages the will to remember, and 
retards the progress of learning (vide par. 17). 
Then, again, when the correctness of what 

6—2 



84 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

comes to mind is doubted, the natural thing to 
do is to recall something else and wonder if it 
is the right thing. Thus associations with a 
wrong object of recall are created. These, in 
turn, block the right one, and, as result, the 
correct association, which has certainly been 
formed some time, is just as certainly weakened 
and wrought into confusion (vide par. 24). 
That is to say, you not only prevent your work 
from attaining its true value, as in the first 
case, but you also positively reduce the worth 
of your work and weaken your memories. As 
against such distrust of memory, it may be 
said that what comes first in recall is probably 
correct. What comes compellingly is, if you 
have learned well, almost certainly correct. 
Many people, indeed, use the latter as a test 
of correctness. They endeavour to give way 
to the mere compulsion of their associations 
by letting themselves " go " in recall. They 
think that where distrust arises it is better 
to lay aside all thoughts and endeavours, 
and to let the associations bring out what is 
correct, for at such times effort to recall is not 



THE FACTORS WHICH INFLUENCE MEMORY 85 

so much a form of will as a form of nervous- 
ness. What comes thus compellingly several 
times over is very probably correct. Correct 
recall is usually accompanied by the assurance 
of its correctness. But of such assurance 
of correctness we have to treat later. Where 
it is absent, however, and if we are deal- 
ing with unrelated facts, even where it is 
present, we have no means of seeing or knowing 
if our memories are correct. Their degree of 
compulsion is their degree of correctness. No 
doubt we can, of course, refer to books or to 
experience anew. 



CHAPTER V 
MENTAL IMAGERY 

43. Introduction. 

The objects around us impress us in various 
ways. We notice the colours of some and the 
shape of others. There are many which are 
best characterised by their sound. Everyone 
speaks of the rattle of musketry and of the 
rolling of thunder. Tastes and smells, too, can * 
be called to mind. We think of the rose, and 
smell its fragrance. What is so characteristic 
of many houses and shops as the vague, inde- 
scribable odour of the rooms and passages ? 
The remembrance of sour fruit sets the teeth 
on edge, and makes the mouth water. Who 
does not recall the touch of a cold, unknown 
object in the dark ? These memories are wit- 
ness to the fact that things often impress us 
more vividly through one sense than another. 



MENTAL IMAGERY 87 

They also show us that we carry the memory of 
impressions with us, and can recall them very 
vividly. But at different times we recall 
different impressions. Talking of motor-cars, we 
may remember the fresh colours and peculiar 
shape of some new model just lately seen, 
or in a less indulgent mood we may think of the 
clouds of smoke and smell emitted by others. 
We can hear in our ear the torrent of confused 
sound, quickly swelling as it rushes towards us, 
and quickly dying away again. To one who 
has inadvertently stepped from the pavement 
in front of a moving car the whole situation will 
often recur. Sight and sound are lost in the 
memory of the sudden jerk of the muscles 
which followed the warning signal of the 
horn, the stamp on the ground with the foot 
which just kept him out of its reach, the 
feelings of strain and pain in the foot which 
followed it. 



88 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

44. Results of Early Psychological Investiga- 
tion—The Three Types. 

Knowledge of these facts of everyday ex- 
perience has been extended by experiment. In 
fact, the subject of mental imagery was one of 
the first to attract the attention of investigators. 
Much interest was aroused by one of the first 
results of closer investigation, which showed 
that men differ apparently very much in the 
kinds of mental images at their disposal. As a 
consequence, several so-called types of imagery 
were distinguished. The chief of these were 
the visual, the auditive, and the muscular types. 
People of the first type recall colours and forms 
with ease and distinctness, those of the second 
sounds, and those of the third movements. 
These differences become clearer when we 
notice how the same memory object is remem- 
bered by each. The visual type, when he 
thinks or speaks of what he has read, sees it in 
print, or in the form of his own handwriting. 
The word " which," however it may be pro- 
nounced, has for him always the appearance of 



MENTAL IMAGERY 89 

" wh." The auditive type, on the other hand, 
is accustomed to hear what he reads, spoken 
inwardly in his own voice, or in that of some- 
one else. He will often make errors in spelling 
which originate in the resemblance of the 
sound of two words, writing " the hold thing " 
for " the whole thing." The muscular type, 
finally, makes imitative movements. When he 
lea,rns he whispers to himself. When he thinks, 
he does not hear or see the words that flit 
through his mind. He has them on the tip of 
his tongue. One will speak often of the beauty 
of colour and form ; the other will fill his speech 
with expressive and imitative sounds ; a third 
will gesticulate freely, and assume an attitude 
at every new thought. Of course, other kinds 
of imagery are common in many people. We 
know the epicure who discriminates and dis- 
cusses dishes, tables, restaurants, and hotels ; 
and to the hypochondriac the feelings of cold 
and warmth, and all sorts of vague discomforts, 
are never hard to suggest. The mere descrip- 
tion of a disease will make many people 
sick. 



90 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

45. Later Work. 

In this way such types are very easily 
described and distinguished. But it is much 
harder to tell how any one person belongs to 
one type exclusively, or how numerous, rela- 
tively to one another, images of different senses 
are in him. In consequence of this the ten- 
dency has for long been to exaggerate the 
importance of the type to which a man belongs, 
and to neglect the effect of other influences 
upon his imagery. The results of recent work, 
however, have thrown fresh light on this sub- 
ject. These new results seem, of course, to be 
very obvious and natural, when viewed as a 
whole, once we have them set before us. But, 
however natural they may then appear, it is 
none the less true that practically everyone 
was blind to them before careful experiment 
opened our eyes. 



\ 



MENTAL IMAGERY 91 

46. Factors determining Imagery. 

(a) Manner of Presentation. 

The first influence to be mentioned is the 
most powerful. It is the nature of the object 
remembered. We cannot recall a rainbow or a 
picture as such by the memory of sounds or 
movements. Nor can we think of a tone 
visually ; nor of a chord muscularly, for 
no one can sing a chord. They are not 
composed of sounds or sights. It is there- 
fore not surprising to find that the manner 
of presentation very often determines the kind 
of imagery present throughout the whole pro- 
cess of recall. If letters or words are presented 
and required to be learned, the learner will very 
often impress them upon himself, and remem- 
ber them visually throughout, even although 
they could be remembered in other ways — as, 
for example, by the sounds or by the motions 
of pronouncing them. As presented to him at 
least, they impress his vision more strongly 
than any other of his senses, and there is a pre- 
sumption in favour of their being retained as a 



92 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

direct effect of these impressions. The same 
learner, on the other hand, may remember a 
second series of words or letters read aloud to 
him, with the help of sound images. Here, for 
the same reason as before, the auditory pre- 
sentation determines the type of imagery used. 
The manner of presentation determines in 
general the manner of learning, while the 
manner of learning in the same way determines 
the manner of recall. 



47. (&) Purpose in Remembering. 

A second determining influence is the purpose 
in remembering. If you wish to remember 
pictures and sculpture, and to think and talk 
much of them, you will be greatly handicapped 
if you cannot remember colours and forms, and 
your achievement will certainly betray your 
deficiency. If you wish to be a professor or 
performer of music, you must at least be 
able to remember tones and tone sequences. 
Pianist and composer are able to study their 
work, and try various effects with the help of 



MENTAL IMAGERY 93 

vivid tone memories alone . In every art some one 
sense is specially involved, and some one class of 
images is predominant and essential, because 
all art aims at the creation and appreciation of 
beauty inherent in or strongly bound up with 
impressions of one or more senses. So, also, 
many forms of action and judgment, although 
they do not involve the actual presence of 
recalled images, nevertheless presuppose a keen 
appreciation of and memory for such images. 

48. (c) Predisposition of Individuals to 
Certain Kinds of Imagery, 

Both the manner of presentation and the 
purpose in remembering, therefore, tend in 
general to evoke the same kind of imagery in 
everyone. But how is it that imagery differs so 
much from person to person ? There must be 
some factor which varies from man to man, and 
modifies the effect of the two influences first 
mentioned, which of themselves would evoke 
the same imagery in all men. This factor is the 
natural predisposition of the individual to the 



94 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

use of one or other sense and to its images rather 
than to those of another, and it is properly the 
cause of types of imagery. Such a predisposi- 
tion may, of course, be cultivated and extended 
when its owner finds its use advantageous. So 
it may become strong and habitual out of all pro- 
portion to the others, and may thus seem to be 
present alone, while imagery that seems wholly 
absent may really be only dormant. The com- 
pulsion of some new manner of presentation or 
new purpose will bring it upon occasion into 
use. As long, however, as circumstances allow 
and the main predisposition is strong enough, 
it may assert itself over the influence of the 
presentation. Thus, having to commit a num- 
ber of spoken words to memory, those of the pro- 
nounced visual type might remember them not 
by sound images, but by the corresponding visual 
images of the words, supplied by the mind of the 
learner at the sound of each word. So we have 
types predominantly visual, or auditive, or 
motor, or types combined of these. There are 
also persons equally well able to command and 
use all kinds of imagery. Where the manner of 



MENTAL IMAGERY 95 

presentation and learning correspond to the 
predominant type, there, of course, the con- 
ditions for recall, according to the type, are the 
best. Where the learner, on the other hand, is 
keenly sensitive to impressions other than those 
of the predominant type, he may, at the instiga- 
tion of circumstances, leave the sphere of the 
typical imagery and follow those suggested. 

49. Some External Signs of Type of 
Imagery. 

The type of imagery predominant in any 
person may be inferred from certain external 
signs. The visual type shuts or shields his eyes 
during the process of recall, so as not to be dis- 
tracted by the sight of things around him. He 
takes longer to recall than the auditive type, 
and does not begin to recall so soon after the 
request to do so. He says what he has learned 
without strict attention to the order it was 
presented in, while, on the other hand, he can 
usually locate each element exactly. Above 
all, the visual type remembers long and accu- 



96 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

rately, and seldom repeats erroneously anything 
already recalled. The auditive type, on the 
contrary, reproduces faster, if only for the 
reason that his imagery tends to fade out 
quickly. He makes few pauses or complete 
stops if he can recall at all, and recalls in the 
order given, unless the last group learned re- 
appears first because it is ringing in his ear 
most distinctly. He is more impulsive in his 
efforts of memory, is not so certain, and often 
repeats as new, words already recalled without 
being aware of it. It is obvious that there are 
sources of error and weakness inherent in both 
types. All those who teach will recognise such 
external differences between their pupils. In 
conclusion, it is to be noted that most people 
have command of visual imagery to a greater 
or less extent. The reason of this is that so 
many important objects belong to our visual 
world. A much smaller number of people are 
also auditive and motor in their imagery. 



MENTAL IMAGERY 97 

50. The Scope of Imagery. 

(a) In Action. 

Of the three factors just described, the first 
two — the manner of presentation and the 
purpose in remembering — set more or less 
definite limits to the scope of imagery, as we 
have seen. The predisposition of the indi- 
vidual, on the other hand, is the occasion of a 
certain amount of freedom and variety. In 
regard to general spheres of interest, we saw 
that pronounced artistic interest and activity 
presupposes the presence and use of certain 
kinds of imagery. It is in the sphere of action 
and knowledge that mental imagery is freest 
and most varied. Both action and knowledge, 
indeed, presuppose the presence of certain 
states, but mental imagery or the like is not 
amongst these. To know I must have thoughts, 
and to act I must make movements. A move- 
ment may be liberated by any image or mental 
experience with which it happens to be con- 
nected. I may react to a light or to a sound. 
My movements may be evoked by a thought, a 

7 



98 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

feeling, a pain, or a touch. Every impression 
which we have from the senses, whether it come 
to our consciousness or not, or any mental state 
whatsoever may come to be the signal for 
action. The only presupposition is that by 
some means or other the stimulus which evokes 
a response shall have been associated with the 
movement it occasions. In view of the fact 
that the whole economy of the organism can 
be conducted in the absence of conscious- 
ness, it would be absurd to imagine that 
any one kind of mental experience must pre- 
cede movement. 



51. (6) In Thought. 

So with thoughts. We are all naturally 
stimulated to our first thoughts by the words 
spoken to us in childhood. First of all, objects 
are pointed out to us and named ; we learn to 
associate words with things, and, in a way that 
is not understood at all yet, we are stimulated 
to thoughts by the changing relations of the 
things that are pointed out to us. Words can 



MENTAL IMAGERY 99 

be so arranged as to mean some relation in 
which objects stand to one another, and we can 
have thoughts which embody these meanings 
for us without the words. In fact, it is neces- 
sary to have the thoughts before we understand 
their meaning. Doubtless a certain arrange- 
ment of the objects which stand in a given rela- 
tion to one another, a certain frequency of 
recurrence of these relations, a certain import- 
ance of these for our welfare, all this and much 
more is necessary for the appearance of the 
relevant thoughts in us. But vague as is 
our knowledge of the adequate stimulus for 
thoughts, we may be sure that a good deal of 
variety is possible. Children have learnt to 
speak and read by other means than by hearing 
the words spoken. The deaf, blind girl Helen 
Keller learned to speak and acquire thoughts 
through her sense of touch. Thought as such 
is independent of all mental imagery, and there 
is therefore little reason to suppose that any 
form of mental imagery forms a predominant 
part of the adequate stimulus for thought in 
general, although it may, of course, be relied on 

7—2 



100 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

to any extent by a given individual. Generally 
speaking, then, knowledge makes no presup- 
positions as to mental imagery. The culmina- 
tion of psychical activity, where knowledge is 
concerned, is either the knowledge attained, or 
else the expression of it by means of some 
muscular activity — for instance, speaking or 
writing. So long as the initial disposition and 
inheritance of the individual mind does not 
make one or other method easier, or so long as 
the object to which the knowledge refers does 
not make one or other method more appro- 
priate, it is indifferent by which process the 
ends of knowledge are attained. And so we 
find it : the use of images in thinking varies 
with the object of thought, and with the 
purpose or predisposition of the individual. 
Visualising, speaking to oneself, or speaking or 
reading aloud, is in general no aid to thought, 
though any one person may find one of these 
devices, or any other for that matter, to be 
a source of distinctness, clearness, or briskness 
of thinking for himself. On the other hand, 
we find that visual imagery forms a frequent 



MENTAL IMAGERY 101 

accompaniment to the processes of thinking, 
for the reason that our largest material world 
is the visual one. 



52. Inferences. 
(a) Do not Multiply Imagery Unnecessarily. 

What inferences can be drawn from all this 
with regard to the economy of memory ? If 
there are any it seems at least clear that they 
must be more restrained and fewer than they 
have usually been. In the first place, it must 
be emphasised that there is not the slightest use 
in multiplying forms of imagery in the process of 
learning in the hope that memory will thereby 
be stronger and more reliable. Energy should 
be concentrated on one method so that it 
becomes reliable. To rely on a second method 
is simply to learn the whole thing over again as 
if it were new. There is, then, no need to read 
aloud, if merely looking over what is to be 
learned suffices ; nor should we write out words, 
phrases, or conversations if they remain in the 
memory when merely heard. 



102 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

53. (b) Positive Rules. 

Positive rules may be constructed in the 
first place from two points of view according 
to the purposes of memory work. If know- 
ledge is being acquired for its own sake it 
matters little how it is acquired, so long 
as it is permanent and recurs readily to 
the learner. He may be guided simply by 
the intention to know and to learn zealously, 
and may leave this effort and his own pre- 
disposition to suggest the most appropriate 
lines of imagery. On the other hand, if there 
is some definite purpose in view, such as 
that of reciting, public speaking, examining, 
it is well, in the course of the process of 
learning, to approach as near as possible to the 
conditions of reproduction. The reciter, even 
if visually disposed, must recite very often in 
private, or to a small circle of friends, before 
submitting to any critical test. His first learn- 
ing may, as a matter of course, be visual, but 
by practice in reciting he will arrange and 
perfect the association with the muscular me- 



MENTAL IMAGERY 103 

chanism, and by this alone, or perhaps by con- 
verting the visual into auditory imagery get 
over the hesitation and frequency of pauses 
peculiar to work with visual imagery. It is 
unnecessary, and might even be harmful, to 
suggest rules for the control of imagery in these 
cases. The imagery suitable to each case will 
come of itself under the compulsion of the 
task set for recitation. Moreover, the reciter 
will find that the imagery involved in his work 
changes in nature the more perfected his com- 
plete performance becomes. So too, in public 
speaking. Private meditation is not practice 
for public speaking as such. A clear arrange- 
ment of topics, mostly on the basis of visual 
presentation ; a habit, mainly auditive or 
muscular, of recalling phrases and forms of 
speech, and of uttering these — when recall is 
once started — without further attention to 
them; the habit of free attention to circum- 
stances and succeeding thoughts thus made 
possible — all such things, and many others 
which appear and grow out of actual practice, 
are necessary before a finished speaker is made. 



104 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

Many make the mistake of supposing that the 
preliminary to a speech must be the power of 
seeing it all before the mind's eye, or of hearing 
it all in thought, or even of saying it all by 
heart. None of these things is necessary, 
though, just in so far as they approach the 
realisation of the actual process of speaking, 
each of them may be a help. Just in the 
same way the habit of writing out sum- 
maries of answers, practice in solving problems 
readily at first glance, and acquired skill in 
composition, is good support in the work of 
written examination ; and yet the student, 
well-seasoned in such tests, may make a bad 
appearance in oral examination, for lack 
of practice in reasoned debate involving 
constant recourse to knowledge of fact and 
theory. If time is allowed, his knowledge 
may, of course, be found to be perfectly 
sound. But very often the time involved 
in recasting the associations, which must pre- 
cede test action, is not given. Here one 
mechanism or practice stands for another only 
in so far as some common element — for 



MENTAL IMAGERY 105 

example, the necessary thoughts — are in- 
volved. The actions are, however, different, 
and the highest skill in action, even the most 
similar kinds of action, is acquired only by very 
long practice. 

54. (c) In General, Visualise. 

Finally, it may be repeated, visual presenta- 
tion and learning generally secure a more 
reliable recall, and auditory presentation 
and learning a more rapid and unhesitating 
recall. It is for this reason that the visual 
mode of presentation is adopted in so many 
systems of memory training. Correctness 
of recall, apparently after one reading, 
impresses an audience greatly, while the slow- 
ness of recall and slight hesitation is easily 
condoned. Lightning calculators, on the 
other hand, must be ready and rapid, and 
so we find that these seldom rely on visual 
imagery, but trust to enormous practice 
and familiarity with all possible or likely 
questions and their answers, or, in more genuine 



106 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

cases, answer by motor impulse, or at the 
suggestion of the auditory image of the 
answer, probably on the basis of pure thought- 
work. 



55. (d) Work in Groups. The Teaching of 
Children. 

So much for solitary work. Where a number 
of persons are being taught together, it is ad- 
visable to give each an opportunity of learning 
in his own way. This is more necessary in the 
case of children, because they have as yet little 
or no knowledge of their habits of imagery, and 
little practice in converting one kind into 
another. Their learning is, therefore, for the 
larger part determined by the mode of presenta- 
tion. Where mode of presentation and the 
predisposition of imagery agree, there they will 
learn well and readily. Where they do not 
agree, the chances are they will not learn at all, 
or only very slowly. For this reason the 
objects of study or pictures of these are shown. 
Words are written on the blackboard, while 



MENTAL IMAGERY 107 

the teacher pronounces them, and encourages 
the child to repeat aloud after him, to use the 
word in an answer, and at times to write about 
what has been taught. Thus, every child is 
likely to bring those images into play by 
which he remembers best. From acquiring 
and learning, the child is gradually led on to 
the practice of muscle, imagery and thought, 
presupposed in the various forms of skilled 
action essential to modern life — speaking, 
reading, writing, calculating, and, at its best, 
thinking and sympathising. It is better to 
write out strange foreign words and names, 
because the visual form must by convention 
always be full and correct. Spoken forms of 
speech, on the other hand, are usually reduced 
to the minimum necessary to suggest the word 
in question. But a foreign word spoken is 
hardly so strange or hard to remember as the 
same word written in quite unfamiliar symbols 
{e.g., Arabic). From what has been already 
said about the general predominance of visual 
imagery, it will follow that as children get 
older the visual form of presentation, as by 



108 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

printed page and blackboard, will become 
more and more popular. The need for 
visual and pictorial demonstration is being 
recognised more and more in our higher 
education. 



CHAPTER VI 
ON THOUGHTS 

56. There are Thoughts. 
Thought as such, as we have said (par. 51), 
is independent of all mental imagery. Such 
independence implies, of course, a radical 
distinction in kind between thoughts and 
images. The observant reader who is not 
versed in current theories of the more complex 
work of the mind or of the brain will scarcely 
find it hard to make this distinction. Yet it 
has been long generally accepted opinion that 
thoughts consist of complex groups or trains 
of imagery of various kinds, les3 vivid in actual 
appearance than what we know as mental 
imagery, but having a strength, precision, and 
pervasiveness all their own, and stretching in 
their actuality and influence far beyond the 
limits of the conscious mind. Indeed, a large 
109 



110 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

part of the imagery which constitutes thought 
was supposed to lie outside these limits, and 
thereby to procure for thought, as that part 
present in the mind, its subtle delicacy and vast 
comprehensiveness. If we but think how such a 
theory arose, we shall see at once that we may 
not call it stupid or absurd. Its value and 
strength lay in the fact that it seemed to trace 
a course of mental development from the 
simple and elementary stimulation of the 
senses and the image left thereby up to the 
most complex operations known. This theory 
appealed with great success — perhaps even 
with most success — to those specially in- 
terested in the structure and disease of the 
brain. For it bears some resemblance to the 
view that the latest development of the brain, 
as seen in man, is a structure of appalling com- 
plexity, gradually built upon and compounded 
of the simplest nervous elements. Disease of 
the brain, too, shows that this complex struc- 
ture may be damaged in limited and quite 
definite ways, so that visual images, or words, 
or movements of one or other limb or muscle, 



ON THOUGHTS 111 

are lost. Ideas, therefore, such as cigar, spoon, 
came to be considered as aggregations of all 
images derived from these objects or excited by 
them — sights, sounds, smells, tastes, motions, 
and the like. And yet just such very cases 
showed often that the theory was not quite 
complete. For alongside these various well- 
known images a special place had to be found 
for understanding and meaning. When at 
last the incongruity of confounding thought 
with groups or complexes of imagery was 
pointed out clearly, a distinction between them 
had to be made. Thoughts have a meaning 
and embody knowledge, while imagery is never 
more than it just happens to be in our minds. 
Besides, thoughts may occur suddenly, reveal- 
ing knowledge, memories, and problems of the 
most far-reaching nature, without materially 
adding to the mental imagery present at all. 
Whatever their actual nature may be, there can 
be no doubt that thoughts must be recognised 
to be a peculiar form of mental experience, just 
as feelings are. And yet at one time vigorous 
endeavours were made to build up feelings out 



112 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

of sensations of various kinds. This attempt 
has now been completely abandoned, as will 
soon be also the attempt to form thoughts out 
of imagery. 



57. Laws of Memory for Thought differ from 
the Preceding, 

Thoughts form undoubtedly a large part of 
our mental experience, the part most important 
for the rational life of knowledge. There seem 
to be many kinds of thoughts. Complex struc- 
tures are built upon them, just as upon sensa- 
tion or images and feelings. They obey laws 
of their own. But of all these things we know 
as yet only very, very little, just enough to 
show us that here a vast field of the greatest 
interest to man is waiting to be explored. One 
thing, however, seems fairly clear : memory for 
thoughts is much better than memory for 
groups or trains of words or other images. 
This alone would suffice to distinguish thoughts 
and images. For if thoughts were simply 
complexes of images, is it likely that complexes 



ON THOUGHTS 113 

or trains of thoughts would be remembered 
much more easily and better than complexes 
or trains of images ? A series of twenty well- 
marked ideas — as, for instance, striking pro- 
verbs or maxims — will be retained to some 
extent even after one reading. Of course, the 
whole series could not then be repeated spon- 
taneously, but the mention of some decisive 
word from each proverb, or of another proverb 
with a similar meaning, will suffice to recall any 
given one immediately. Of a series of thirty 
such proverbs, read aloud once, with a short 
pause for reflection after each, a good memory 
can reproduce correctly the main thought, 
and perhaps even the exact words, of as many 
as twenty-seven. The same holds good for 
thoughts which are elaborated by the hearer 
with the help of suggestive phrases which are 
to be remembered. If we construct a long 
series of pairs of such phrases — e.g., Homer and 
the Bible, the unity of mankind ; supreme 
genius, gentlest modesty; nationalisation of 
|art, patriotism run mad, etc. — and read these 
slowly to a listener, allowing him time to form 

8 



114 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

a link of thought between the members of each 
pair, we shall find that, on naming the first 
member of each pair to him in haphazard 
order, he will reproduce the thought or the 
words of the other members correctly in most 
cases. Out of twenty such pairs, seventeen to 
eighteen can usually be recalled correctly. But 
if we read once twenty words from a strange 
language, with their meaning in English, we 
should with difficulty remember even a small 
fraction of them. 



58. Some Explanation of the Above. 

This ease in remembering thoughts can be 
understood to some extent from what has been 
already said about the learning of familiar 
matter (par. 31). Familiar matter should be 
learnt by repetition of the whole piece. No 
trouble need be taken with the single members. 
Now, the elements of such pairs of thoughts 
are more or less familiar — so familiar, at least, 
that it is not quite fair to compare them with 
words from strange languages, which belong 



ON THOUGHTS 115 

rather to the type of unfamiliar matter (par. 32). 
The only work that has to be done, therefore, 
is that of binding the one to the other by links 
of association or of thought. If thought is to 
be the connection, the elements must be of such 
a kind that they will readily suggest a distinc- 
tive thought link. Pairs of ideas, like Thames 
— river, Darwin — scientist, hotel — street, 
would not thus excite thought, and would 
therefore probably not be remembered for more 
than a few minutes or hours, if at all. The 
thought links suggested by such familiar ideas 
are themselves too obvious and commonplace 
to be more effective in recall than mere associa- 
tions. It would be simpler to learn the whole 
series by repetition. Of course, even a series 
of most suggestive ideas could be learned by 
mere repetition and association, and such 
associations do doubtless often play a part in 
the recall of thoughts. But the part they play 
is very small. Thought links and thought 
resemblances are much more powerful. 
Thought links seem often to consist of a special 
state of knowledge of what is to be recalled. 

8—2 



116 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

Some peculiarity or some circumstance of the 
first appearance of this idea, the thought of 
the relation in which it stands to the other, 
some feature common to both — this or any 
other idea which has been suggested by the 
two ideas to be remembered, and which forms 
a complete idea with them, will serve as a 
powerful means of recall. The more inevitable 
the idea which binds those to be remembered, 
the more likely it is to be unfailing in its action. 
Simply because the two ideas to be connected 
demand some one particular link or connecting 
idea to make them complete, does the presence 
of any one part of this whole lead to the recall 
of all other parts. The necessity of such recall is 
less, of course, the poorer, weaker, or less indi- 
vidual the combination of ideas is. In this 
way the learner may be aware of the detailed 
thought even before its recall. He may be 
aware what sort of a thought he has to recall, 
how it is related to the thought that suggests 
recall, and whether he can or need recall it 
correctly and fully, or not. It is clear that here 
we have a process of recall which is much more 



ON THOUGHTS 117 

characteristic and much more reassuring than 
that of mere association. Here we get almost 
a conscious embodiment of reliability of 
memory. It brings with it, besides, its own 
measure of trust, which no one would think of 
doubting. Yet there can be no doubt that the 
assurance such thought memories often bring 
with themselves is also based ultimately upon 
reproductive compulsion. The only difference 
is that this compulsion is built upon a special- 
ised group of thoughts, which cling together 
longer because of their internal relations of 
meaning. 



59. Thought Links as an Aid to Memory. 

The ease with which thoughts procure recall 
has been known in a rough way for very long. 
It has been one of the mainstays of most 
memory systems. Some ingenuity in inventing 
thoughts to link even the most incoherent 
words together is presupposed. The more 
appropriate these thought links are, the more 
naturally they are suggested by the words to 



118 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

be remembered, and the more unique they are, 
the stronger and surer will the memory be. 
Where the thought links are not very appro- 
priate or striking, the most they can do is to 
reinforce for a time the mechanical associations. 
Such a method of reinforcing associations is 
useful and powerful, wherever it is possible and 
advisable to apply it. There are, indeed, some 
people who learn almost constantly by the 
help of thought links where others use imagery. 
Their learning consists in noting likeness, differ- 
ences, relations, size, etc., of the elements of 
the piece to be learned, and they recall with 
the help of these. In the same way constant 
comparison of our thoughts and experiences 
with one another is a great help in the study 
of any subject. By thinking over our experi- 
ences, we not only create new thought links 
between them, but we work them up into 
coherent and therefore easily remembered 
systems. It would, however, be intolerable to 
apply the method indiscriminately to learning. 
It would debase the faculties of thought, which 
are the vehicles of truth and of objective mean- 



ON THOUGHTS 119 

ing, to the mere level of a mechanism, already 
perfectly supplied by association. In most 
cases the use of thought links would simply be 
a means of shirking the slight amount of work 
involved in committing a series of words to 
memory by association in the most economical 
manner. Besides, the use of thoughts is not a 
matter of mere economy. Bad usage makes 
the best tool bad. Thought must be kept as 
far as possible to its proper use in order that 
it may grow more efficient in that use. Its 
proper use, of course, is to follow the compul- 
sion of objects and of the relations between 
objects. The more true and natural the 
thought links are that are invented to bind 
one idea to another, therefore, the more lasting 
and the surer will be recall. 



60. The Place of Memory in Conscious Life. 

In the learning of any matter in which 
thought plays an essential part, it ought never 
to be lost from sight. Man does not live to 
remember, and any system of education which 



120 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OP MEMORY 

appeals mainly to the memory has so far failed 
to meet its purpose. Man lives to think, to 
know, to feel, and to do, and to have constant 
pleasure in all these. Memory is only a means 
thereto. It is the means by which an animal 
is enabled to perform an acquired act swiftly 
and appropriately, and so to fulfil its natural 
instincts of self -nourishment and self-defence. 
It is the means by which man extends his world 
of objects beyond the mere animal present into 
the past, and out of the material world into the 
ideal and dream of the future. Apart from 
professional tasks, therefore, memory as such 
has no value for learning. It is only the 
thoughts and knowledge embodied in words, 
only the beauty inherent in the symbols to 
be learnt, which we cherish. Knowledge and 
beauty are bound up very closely with their 
means of expression. They ought to be grasped 
in some manner from the very first, before the 
actual work of learning begins ; for it is they 
which bind the means of expression into one 
object worth the learning. The study of the 
means of expression will then give further insight 



ON THOUGHTS 121 

into the knowledge and beauty inherent in them. 
The process of learning enables us to realise 
more completely the spirit of the work, and this, 
again, reacts on the process of learning to make 
it more unitary, fluent, and perfect. Thus in 
any art or science does technique become com- 
plete. Technique is just another word for 
memory so exercised that reproduction will be 
correct, easy, and sure. It is a mistake to 
suppose that the highest technique consists in 
the most difficult and almost impossible move- 
ments. There are obvious and different limits 
to muscular performances in all animals. The 
only technique worth the name is that which 
no power of external imitation will afford, but 
which becomes possible only when the thought or 
beauty inherent in the appropriate movements 
has been realised. It is a peculiarity of such 
technique that it is finished very soon after the 
inner meaning or beauty has been grasped. 
For Nature's difficulty is not the making of 
movements. A worm can move. Her greatest 
effort has always been to provide brain-texture 
for complexity and variety of movement. To 



122 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

man she has revealed a reason for carrying this 
development very much farther. She has given 
him knowledge and appreciation, and wherever 
these are impossible or only imperfectly 
realised without skilled performance, there 
technique is most valuable. Without the 
spirit of truth and beauty, memory is but the 
graveyard of experience. 



CHAPTER VII 

RULES FOR THE ECONOMY AND TRAINING OP 
MEMORY 

( The numbers in brackets refer to the paragraphs 
in the text.) 

1. You never had a better memory, if you are 

in good health, than you have now 
(v. 17). 

2. Be interested. Let the needs of life or the 

love of knowledge, of beauty or of good 
actions rouse in you the desire to learn 
(v. 19). 

3. Do not try to improve your memory. Try 

to learn better, then you will remember 
better (v. 1, 4). 

4. Begin carefully. The first survey of any 

matter to be learned is very important. 
Make it slow, careful, and correct. 
Mistakes of all kinds must be carefully 
avoided (v. 24). 

123 



124 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

5. Repeat often. The oftener words, 

thoughts, actions, or any experiences 
whatsoever are brought before the mind, 
passively or actively, the more likely 
they are to reappear there (v. 22). 

6. Will to remember. In learning, keep the 

intention to remember ever before the 
mind. However much practice you 
may have had, renewed effort will give 
you still greater ease and skill (v. 39, 
40). 

7. Learn familiar matter as a whole. In 

learning familiar matter of moderate 
length, read through the whole piece 
repeatedly till it is learned. Do not 
learn little by little or verse by verse 
(*. 26, 28). 

8. Learn unfamiliar matter in parts. If the 
matter is unfamiliar or full of special 

\ difficulties, repeat fragments of it or 
parts containing such difficulties separ- 
ately, until these become familiar and 
easy ; then learn the piece as a whole 
(v. 27). 



RULES 125 

9. Short sittings. Do not try to learn a thing 
all at once. Spread your repetitions 
over a number of sittings, long enough 
to interest you and get you into swing, 
but much too short for fatigue {v. 29, 
30, 31). 

10. Pause after work. Allow the mind to 

wander at will for four or five minutes 
after each sitting. Do not turn at 
once to new work (v. 33, 34). 

11. Pause during work. Do not take too 

big mouthfuls. Learn deliberately, 
pausing for an instant every now 
and then, increasing the speed only 
as the piece settles in the memory 
{v. 34, 35). 

12. Learn well before recalling. Do not 

try to recall from memory at all 
until you feel little doubt it will be 
quite successful. During the first 
recall consult the text at once 
when doubts arise (v. 24). Do not 
try to recall between sittings (v. 24, 
30, 31). 



126 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

13. Trust the memory. What comes com- 

pellingly to it is, if you have learned 
well, almost certainly correct. When 
in doubt, do not question, but just 
"let it come" {v. 42, 58). 

14. Time will tell. To know if what 

you have learned has become a 
permanent possession of the memory, 
leave it foT a week, month, or 
year, as the case may be. Then re- 
call without any preparation. All 
failure, hesitation, or uncertainty in 
recall is then a sign of imperfect or 
disturbed associations. In relearn-. 
ing, devote special attention to these 
(v. 32). 

15. Use a rhythm in learning, as far as 

possible, and stick to it throughout 
(v. 36). 

16. Learn fast, if need be. If a limited and 

rather short time is allowed for learn- 
ing, learn as fast as possible, but not 
so fast as to agitate or distract the 
mind (v. 37). 



RULES 127 

17. Do not multiply imagery unnecessarily. 

If you know your predominant form 
of imagery, learn according to it as 
far as possible. In most cases, how- 
ever, it is better not to think of it at 
all, but just to learn hard (v. 52). 

18. Systematise and visualise. Systematise 

what has to be learned as much as pos- 
sible. Still better, visualise it, if you 
can do so easily, or learn it from paper 
(v. 38, 54). 

19. Learning is just practice for recall. 

Therefore make the process of learn- 
ing as like that of recall as possible 
(v. 53). 

20. Thought links, especially when the 

matter to be learned readily suggests 
them, are a valuable aid to quick 
learning (v. 59). 

21. Slow but sure recall is guaranteed by 

thought links and visual imagery. 
Auditory and mechanical learning 
make recall prompt and swift (v. 37, 
.49). 



128 ECONOMY AND TRAINING OF MEMORY 

22. If you have to learn things by heart, 

take a pleasure and pride in it (v. 41). 

23. Give your pupils every opportunity of 

acquiring by imitation habits of 
economical learning. 



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